A pink railroad vine blossoms at Blacktip Island’s Blacktip Haven resort, site of the cancelled passive-aggression management workshop. (photo courtesy of Leigh Shore)
A Blacktip Association for Mental Health-sponsored passive aggression and sarcasm retreat this weekend at Blacktip Haven resort has been cancelled due to local indifference, organizers said.
“Passive aggression is the monster on Blacktip Island, gnawing away at the community’s well being,” psychologist and BAMH facilitator Leigh Shore said. “This retreat was supposed to be a lifeline for islanders identify to and properly deal with hostility regulation.
“Now, with everyone boycotting, we’re stuck in the same old snarky mess,” Shore said. “What can I say? You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped.”
Some locals said the lack of turnout was due to confusion about the workshop’s goals.
“”I don’t know why Leigh’s so upset,” Eagle Ray Divers divemaster Alison Diesel said. “The flyer read ‘Passive Aggressive Workshop.’ You couldn’t tell whether it was for or against passive aggression.
“I mean, if she was gonna teach how to get better at it, I was all in,” Diesel said. “But two days of being nice to a roomful of jerks? Whatever.”
Other locals voiced broader criticism.
“Some yahoo gonna tell us how to live better? Not happening, you know,” local handyman Dermott Bottoms said. “It attacks our culture, our way of life.”
Island mayor Jack Cobia agreed.
“We Blacktip Islanders don’t suffer from passive aggression. We quite enjoy it,” Cobia said. “It’s not a disorder. It’s a coping mechanism, the survival skill that allows us to get along.
“As for no one going to this seminar-thingy, I’m not losing any sleep over it,” Cobia said.
Workshop organizers, meanwhile, still hope to attract participants.
“I’m not mad,” Shore said. “All it takes is one attendee to make this a success. If the workshop doesn’t go this weekend, we’ll do it next weekend. And the next. We’ll run it every weekend until someone shows up.”
Locals were not swayed.
“No one’s got time for that damn class,” Bottoms said. “And if Leigh tries to make us go, well, she’ll see some active aggression.”
The Blacktip Times 
I always say dealing with a passive-aggressive is like being slowly devoured by a cowardly piranha: They take a bloody little bite, then run away, they take a bite, then run away.