Hmmm...TACKY!

One of you suggested I write a post or two based on words from my blog header. So here ya go. Just to refresh everyone's memories...here is the definition of one of my all-time favorite words:

tack·y

²    [tak-ee] 

adjective, tack·i·er, tack·i·est.

1.

not tasteful or fashionable; dowdy.

2.

shabby in appearance; shoddy: a tacky, jerry-built housingdevelopment.

3.

crass; cheaply vulgar; tasteless; crude.

4.

gaudy; flashy; showy.

I used to work with this girl...let's call her Brandi...since that was her name. She was kind of a cynical person, and she talked a lot of schmack.  She also cursed regularly...but somehow when she did, it sounded kind of funny. Often when people did or said things to her she would respond by shaking her head and saying, "hmmm...TACKY." I can't do it justice in writing...you just had to hear the way she said it, but it was super funny. She said it to our bosses, most of our coworkers, me--pretty much no one was exempt from having their actions labeled, "TACKY" by Brandi. I picked up the habit from her, and pretty soon I was calling everyone and everything "tacky" too.

Over Thanksgiving we were with family. You know you can't get 20 people together for 5 days without someone doing or saying something that just grates on your last nerve. I haven't wanted to tell someone they were tacky for SO long until just the other day. But of course I would never do that...it would have caused a lot of drama. So I just kept my mouth shut...for the most part. So just in case anyone actually ever reads this blog, I'm not gonna spell it all out here, but I will give a short list of things I have recently considered to be, well, TACKY!

Tacky: Making excuses for everything. Have you ever found yourself telling someone you couldn't or didn't do something and then following it up with a long list of excuses? Or, have you found yourself listening to someone else's 2 million reasons why they can't do/buy/eat/wear something? As if people actually care WHY you are lame. And the most irritating part of this is that none of the excuses is actually the real reason for the refusal to do said thing. I am kind-of a champ at excuse-making and it drives me insane. And when I know someone is just giving me an excuse (I'm thinking of a certain relative) I just want to smack them. For Pete's sake, if you need to justify yourself, just don't do it out loud!

Tackier: Reveling in someone else's misfortune. This one just kills me. Let's say you find out one of your friends did something super embarrassing. They try to mitigate the fallout, but alas, everyone finds out about it anyway...mostly because you can't keep your trap shut. It's the "Oh, my gosh! You are never going to believe what so-and-so did...I feel so awful for her! Can you believe she did that? How embarrassing!" The worst part about this tacky move is that you are pretending to feel bad for your friend...but meanwhile you can't help but tell everyone within a 50-mile radius all about her unfortunate blunder--and you seem to enjoy the telling a little too much. Why do we like to talk about other people's misfortune so much? Holy crap, just keep your mouth shut!

Tackiest: Talking schmack about the people that drive you insane! I have always been a schmack talker. If someone does something that irritates me, I find it virtually impossible not to talk about it to another person. I admit it...this is one of my least favorite character flaws. Sometimes I wish I could think of tactful ways to tell the people that aggravate me that what they are doing is super annoying. Or better yet, I wish I would just NOT BE ANNOYED. I seriously need to get some more love for people, you know? Maybe then I wouldn't be so bothered by by what they do and say. But in the mean time, I can't seem to ever stop talking schmack. For the love, I just need to cork it!

So if no one has figured it out, I do the above 3 tacky things on a regular basis, but usually it takes seeing someone else do it for me to remember how much I really don't want to keep these behaviors up. So, please, the next time I start to make excuses, or talk a little schmack, just remind me that the cool girl isn't tacky!