Emoticons Are Not a Type of Transformer

I know talking about emoticons is soooo 1997, but after a few recent emails, I have to bring up something that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else.

If I were to describe        I’d say “wink”.

If I were to describe        I’d say “sad face”.

But every time I see       I can’t help but envision the big, shit-eating grin of some 35 year old corporate America asshole (and/or obese, taco-stained co-worker) who just followed up a horrendous insult about your dead mother with “No offense though, right?”

  has to be the best way to communicate passive-aggressiveness in the history of the universe.

It’s God’s gift to the passive-aggressive hordes of America.

Only the brilliant, absurdly popular and emoticon-drenched passive-aggressive notes blog seems to mention this at all.  Otherwise, Google’s got nothing for me.  And don’t we all experience the knuckle-whitening, teeth-grinding, blinding fury of reading an email where your favorite frenemy ends the most passive-aggressive sentence in the world with     ?

As if we couldn’t already envision our pal Bobby Burglecutt’s fat face glacially shifting into a fist-magnet of a grin. He’s got to hammer down the point that he meant no offense (oh yes he did) by letting you know that his face is hypothetically wearing a sunshiney smile as he typed out, “Sorry you caught me in a wife/mom sandwich last night- no hard feelings, right?  ”

Of course, emoticon-driven passive-aggressiveness rears its ugly head most with roommates.  Though I’ve been blessed with good ones, I’ve seen friends’ who get awesome emails with lines like these:

“Hey, could you please buy your own shampoo?  And maybe pay me for the one you used?  ”

“Could you maybe be quieter at night, because one of your roommates is a teacher.  ”

“No worries about eating my grapes.   Maybe you can take it out of next month’s rent?      ”

“It’s cool, but seriously, sometimes I want to kill you and feast on your heart.  ”

Got any amazing passive-aggressive emoticonning going on in your Inbox?