Snarky Scapegoats

If you've had the pleasure of spending time with us recently, you may have noticed some peculiar behavior. Sometimes it looks like we are saying something snarky - sometimes it even sounds like we are making these snarky remarks.

Factini (shaken not stirred): until recently, we would assign responsibility for these rude outbursts to Oprah.

Example:
“The man sitting next to me on the train this morning smelled like a horse barn… What? Who said that? Oprah! That was so rude!”

Do we really think that we are channeling Oprah’s innermost thoughts? Of course not. But let's face it, everyone loves Oprah. If she were to mouth off to her friends, they would probably love her even more for it. However, when we try to get away with such shenanigans, it doesn't fly.

So we "blamed" Oprah for certain outbursts. But then we had an epiphany: we love Oprah and would never want to upset her. And let's face it, that woman has people everywhere. Odds are, her people would eventually find out about our hijinks, tell the grande dame and get us blacklisted from life.

What were we to do? We couldn't start taking credit for the tremendously witty -- though sometimes admittedly crude -- remarks while retaining our image as sensitive, sophisticated young women (stop laughing, readers, we hear you). So we turned to Will Ferrell's classic, Talladega Nights, for advice and found the solution: Tom Cruise!

As Ricky Bobby runs around the track clad in tighty-whities believing he is on fire, he yells: “Help me Jesus! Help me Jewish God! Help me Allah! AAAAAAHHH! Help me Tom Cruise! Tom Cruise, use your witchcraft on me to get the fire off me!”

Ricky Bobby is right: Tom Cruise has both the stature to take the blame for crass remarks and the nutty reputation to make it almost believable that he might have mouthed off (see his 2005 interview with Matt Lauer if you don't believe us - and stop being so glib).

Now our conversations go something like this instead:
A: I’m going to have one of those rolls with some honey on it for breakfast.

S: You should add butter. Lots of real butter... What? Tom Cruise, butter isn’t good for you! You know I don’t eat that! What a ridiculous suggestion...

Much better, right?

Oprah's people: when you read this, please tell our girl that we adore her. And that we may need to ask where she bought that couch in case we have to let Mr. Cruise vent some of his nervous energy.

Tom Cruise's people: please don't let evil alien Xenu and his Scientology henchmen come after us. We’ll call our South Park peeps to defend us. Seriously. We would do that.

~Sarah and April