PNYAAARK!

That is the sound my mind makes when somebody who richly deserves it gets their comeuppance. I don't want to delve too deeply into the swamp of schadenfreude, but I do have a small jolt of 'haHAA' that shoots through my head. That my friends is “pnyaaark”, pronounced with the accent on the second syllable and with a nasally inflection. Sometimes I say it out loud.

Give it a go. Ready? One and a two and a three:

Pnyaaaaaaaarrk

If you don't think it sounded quite right, hold your nose next time and pretend you are talking through a snort.

Now that we have the pronunciation down let us turn to using the word in its proper context.

For instance:

• 

  Have a nice day!

  You are doing the speed limit on your way to work in the morning. A teddibly impawtant person pulls out from behind you and passes while honking leaving you in his superior dust. You fume a bit but figure there is no point in letting an idiot ruin your day. A few blocks later you notice that he and his Beamer have been the lucky contestants in a speed trap game, and the cop is now writing him out his prize ticket. You let a 'pnyaaark' spout and you wriggle a tiny bit with illicit joy.
  
• At a meeting, the unit piggy reaches into the doughnut box to snag the last chocolate dip, knowing that you have not yet had a doughnut and that choccydip is your favourite. The boss whaps his wrist and says “For crying out loud Travis, you have just downed three of these things. Leave some for the rest of us”. “Pnyaaaark” you say, but only in your mind because you don't want to be thought of as nasty. You are, but you certainly don't want to advertise it. You look around and ask if anyone else wants the choccydip. They say 'no', and you sit and eat it slooooowly with every indication of bliss, pnyaaarking away in your head.
• Your neighbour bleats on and on and on and on about her perfect kid who can do anything wonderfully and who is destined to be the next face on Mount Rushmore and he isn't even American. He gets busted for cocaine trafficking. “Pnyaaaaaaaaaaaaark”!

I'm not saying this is a particularly stellar part of the human condition, but human it is. I pray a lot about it. However, the positive spin is that “pnyaaark” keeps me from saying and thinking much worse, and from calling curses down upon the annoying ones in life.

To “pnyaaark” or not to “pnyaaark”. That is the question. My answer is – sure! Go for it.

I hate clowns.  Pnyaaark!