The irony of the traffic jam
Traffic jam is a significant challenge, and Benji describes it as horrible. Together with his brother, Benji gets out and tries their level best to beat the traffic. However, the reader finds it sardonic when the narrator says, "Throughout summer, you heard a lot of different strategies of how to beat the traffic or at least slap around a little." Most people try to play tricks to slap the traffic a little. The reader finds it ironic that that traffic jams can be slapped.
The Irony of the Long Island Expressway
Benji narrates that one feature of the Sag Harbor town is heavy traffic jams, majorly on the Long Island Expressway. Satirically, most traffic jams are witnessed during the day and the early hours of the morning. The narrator's mother thinks it is a miracle because she does not expect to see the expressway without traffic. The narrator writes, "My father's method was easy and brutal – hit the road at five in the morning so that we were the only living souls on the Long Island Expressway, making a break for it in the haunted dark." Every so often, my mother said, 'there is no traffic,' as if it were a miracle."
The irony of the twins
Benji calls his younger brother 'twin', ironic since they were born ten months apart. However, the two get along well, and Benji thinks that they are twins, which is not the case. Benji says, "We had recently ceased to be twins. We were born ten months apart, and until I went into high school, we came as a marched set, more Siamese than fraternal or identical, defined by an uncanny inseparability."
The irony of the gifted surgeon
Benji and his brother Reggie believe that they are inseparable and nothing their parents can do about it. Sarcastically, Benji jokes that it is only an experienced surgeon who can separate him from his brother because they are like conjoined twins. Benji asks, "where is the surgeon gifted enough to undertake this risky operation, separate this hapless conjoined? Paging Doc Puberty, arms scrubbed, smoked to the hilt, smacking the nurses on the ass, and well versed in all latest technologies."
The Irony of Liza's parents
Liza's parents are civil lawyers, well-educated, and civilized. These parents claim that they respect other colors, races, and creeds. Ironically, they do not respect their ideology. The reader finds it satirical that a civilized individual should base respect on the bias. The narrator says, "Her parents respected all races, colors, and creeds unless that creed was their own."
