I mentioned my self-diagnosis of having a logical mind
with no common sense, but there must be more going on. I earned the dubious title of “Bubble Boy” a
few years ago. Sandy and I were riding
along with Don and Audrey on the way from cousin Harold’s house to Broadway to
see Jersey Boys when I said something that made them laugh. That, in turn, led me to say that if I had to
choose just one word to describe life, I would choose the word “funny.” Audrey promptly said that she would hate to
be around when my bubble bursts. For
several years after that I found myself wondering whether indeed I was somehow
protecting myself from reality, and that someday reality would come crushing
down and devastate me…that my bubble would burst. I would periodically report back that my
bubble was still intact. Naïve or not,
the one word I would choose is still “funny.”
I eventually came across a quote attributed to Horace
Walpole, an 18th century Englishman, that I think helps: “This world
is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.” Of course, all of us do both, but I think I
protect myself from pain by “intellectualizing” and using logic. It may be that I use my mind to block sadness
and unpleasantness from reaching my brain.
But I like the idea that, if you really think about it, most things are
pretty funny. I continue to be a very
happy person, and I hope that I always will be. Along with my one-word description of life as
“funny,” I have confessed that my one-word attitude
toward life may well be “Whatever.” That may sound a little too irresponsible;
and actually I am not an irresponsible person.
This quote from an article in the February 2014 issue of Prevention
magazine might explain: “You can’t fill a cup that’s already full. That means you can’t approach a new
situation…with what you think you know will happen. When you do that, you’re
not leaving room for the unexpected, the delightful, and even the miraculous.”
I especially enjoy irony, where a common saying is
inverted, twisted or truncated to make a good point in a comical way, or where
something makes no sense and a lot of sense at the same time. Oscar Wilde once wrote that a friend will
stab you in the front! Groucho
Marx is reputed to have originated: “I would never join an organization that
would have me for a member.” Yogi Berra said things like, “It gets late early
this time of year” (as in Major League Baseball’s post season); and about a
popular restaurant in New York: “Nobody goes there anymore – it’s too crowded.” Truncations include: “Those who live in glass
houses shouldn’t throw stones” becomes “Those who live in glass houses
shouldn’t;” “All’s well that ends well” becomes “All’s well that ends,” and “He
who laughs last laughs loudest” becomes “He who laughs lasts.”
Then there are the mixed metaphors. I worked with a woman who, with no intention
of being funny, combined, “We need to touch all the bases” and “We need to
grease the skids” into “We need to grease the bases.” I could visualize a runner sliding into a
greased base and flying off a few yards into the outfield! I heard Barry Bonds respond to a reporter’s
question with: “We will hit that bridge when it happens,” which I decided was a
double mixed metaphor. We are supposed
to cross the bridge when we get to it: We don’t hit the bridge;
and bridges don’t “happen.”
Sayings are combined so that “It’s not rocket science”
and “It’s not heart surgery” become “It’s not rocket surgery;” “He’s only
human” and “Nobody’s perfect” become “Nobody’s human!” I know some would say this all sounds pretty
corny, but what can I say? I amuse
myself with my own thoughts, and sometimes I amuse other people (some other
people – like Sandy). Mae West (or her
writers, if any) had the same fondness.
She said things like, “To err is divine” and “A hard man is good to
find.” For those who don’t have a clue,
in the first instance she was shortening and twisting the meaning of “To err is
human; to forgive divine.” In the second
she was flipping “A good man is hard to find” into something that more fit her
bawdy persona. The old American Indian
adage to walk a mile in someone else’s moccasins before judging him has been
restated as: “Walk a mile in a person’s shoes before insulting him. That way, you are a mile away from him, and
you have his shoes!”
I have been meaning to tell Audrey, who gets really
impatient and angry about “political correctness,” that I am now so politically
correct (from living in California) that I call my mail man my
person-person. It really tickled me when
Alex said that they have been teasing older brother Ryan by telling him that,
if he didn’t start doing better in school and getting more serious about his
future, he was going to end up selling stolen wheelchairs for a living! When Cousin Harold told me last year that the
constant ringing in his ears is a condition called “tinnitus,” (sounds like
“tonight us”), I told him that Sandy has “not tonight-us” (that is, not
interested in love-making)…just kidding
I use humor to try to handle the negatives around us: one
person killed is a tragedy; 1,000 people killed is a statistic. Or on human nature: one shopping cart
irresponsibly left in an area meant for parking the car is a shame; two carts
left like that is an outrage; three or more is a good place to leave my
cart. And…a neighbor was trying to give
away an old beat up bookcase by leaving it on the curb with a FREE sign on
it. When it was still there a few days
later, I suggested he change the sign to read $100 OR BEST OFFER and someone
would probably steal it! As a different
example, after riding with his father numerous times, the child finally asks: “Dad,
how come the people who drive faster than us are all maniacs and the people who
drive slower than us are all morons?”
Human nature may be deplorable in some ways, but it does
make me laugh. The story goes that a
woman moved to a new town, visited a local church, and arranged to meet with
the pastor. She asked him what the
people in this town and in this church were like. He asked her what the people were like in the
town she had just left, and she said that they were wonderful, kind, caring,
thoughtful, etc, whereupon the pastor smiled and said, “I have good news for
you. You will find the people in this
town to be very similar to the ones you left.”
Another woman moved to the same town and went through the same process
with the same pastor, but in answer to the pastor’s question she had to say
that the people in the town she had just moved away from were not nice. They were gossipy busybodies, unkind, given
to jealousies, backbiting, etc, whereupon the pastor said, “I have bad news for
you. You will find the people in this
town to be very similar to the ones you left.” I find that fascinating – such a
big idea in such an economy of words!
Here is a major rabbit trail. While visiting Cousin Harold recently, we
were talking about one of the murder convictions where the jury was trying to
decide whether to recommend the death penalty or life in prison with no
possibility of parole. The murderer was
asking for the death penalty, rather than life in prison, but we weren’t sure
whether he was using “reverse psychology.”
This raised the question of whether for some people life in prison would
be a worse punishment than death, or not.
I know that Sandy, with her claustrophobia, would sincerely rather die
than be locked up for life. As Inspector
Columbo used to say, “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime!”
I mentioned to Harold that I thought I could handle life
in prison fairly well, because I tend to “live in my mind.” Harold thought that sounded pretty bizarre
and chided me about it a few times during the visit. But I thought: You get TV, movies, 3 meals a
day (I’m not fussy about what I eat).
You get free medical and dental, access to any books you want. I believe I could close my mind off to the
things and people I no longer had access to, and enjoy the things I did have
access to. I am assuming, of course,
that I would not be subjected to the violence among inmates that we hear
about. Maybe I am being naïve.
As I mention probably more than once throughout these
memories, I have a lot of funny stories and one-liners floating around in my
head. More than a few times I have
explained myself by saying that there is a party going on in my head. I amuse myself with bits and pieces that pop
into my conscious mind. Something
happens, or something is said, and up pops a comical or amusing thought. There are some dopey/dorky things that I think
are original with me that I may never have had occasion to say out loud, but I
amuse myself with them. For example, I
may see or visualize a dog pooping on the ground, then turning around and
checking it out, and it reminds me of the saying that I turned around in my
head a long time ago. The saying is “I
saw my duty and I did it,” so I think of the dog saying to himself, “I did my
duty and I saw it.” Well, it amuses me,
anyway.
There are some thoughts that I haven’t shared because I
suspect that I may be the only one who thinks they are funny. At the end of a marathon or long training
run, we are advised to lay on our backs in the shade and elevate our feet. Well, I was laying there thinking: Did I
“stop and smell the roses along the way”?
No, but I “stopped and rose the smellers” at the end. I don’t think I ever said that out loud. Then there is “I came, I saw, I conquered,”
as supposedly uttered by Julius Caesar.
It takes on a completely different meaning if we imagine the successful
womanizer saying, “I saw, I conquered, I came.”
Sandy says I am ‘clueless,’ more than naïve, and it is
because I am not interested in things, which she feels is a reflection of my
upbringing. For example, I took a
one-week trip to Long Island in 2014, mainly to visit with Aunt Dot, staying in
Harold’s downstairs apartment. I also
got to see Robbie and Larissa’s little boy, Benjamin, who was born just after
my prior visit; and I got to see their finished kitchen, which was in
mid-construction during the last visit.
Sandy asked me what brand of coffee I had downstairs at Harold’s, and I
didn’t know! I had made a pot every
morning for a week, but only knew that it was not decaf. I didn’t notice or remember what brand it
was.
When she asked me whether Robbie and Larissa’s kitchen
had granite counters, I drew a similar blank.
I didn’t notice, couldn’t visualize it, and didn’t know. So Sandy may have a point there. When I think to myself: “Well, what does it
matter? It’s not important,” I must also
ask myself, “Well, what does matter?
What is important to me?” I couldn’t tell you. Yet I am interested in some things that I
readily admit don’t matter, like celebrity gossip and pop culture in general. I am very good with the names of singers and
actors, who they are or were married to, what songs and movies they are known
for, etc. That stuff really doesn’t matter, but I find it interesting. Go figure.
I put the whole thing, including being naïve and
gullible, under the “lack of common sense” umbrella. We have some pithy comments about common
sense, such as “Common sense ain’t so common” (generally spoken by someone who
thinks they have more than most) and “Common sense is like deodorant: The
people who need it most never use it.”
This one seems to assume that we all have common sense – we just don’t
all use it. The ironic thing about
common sense is that if you don’t have it, you don’t have the sense to know you don’t have it. I lived most of my life not recognizing the
nature of my deficiency, instead saying things like: “I’m just not mechanically
inclined” or “I just don’t have the stomach for corporate politics” or “I’m
just a classic bridge-burner” or “people just don’t understand the real me”,
etc. Once I understood and accepted that
I do not have the common sense that most others have I could say, “Well, that
explains a lot!”
One of my first memories of the evidence against me is
from early elementary school, where we would receive small cartons of milk at
lunchtime. I couldn’t seem to open the
carton without having some milk gush out and make a mess. I finally complained out loud and one of my
young buddies showed me how to grip the square container gently on two corners
while opening it, instead of squeezing it in the middle. Who knew?
Around the same time, Dad brought his mandolin on a
summertime trip to Smithtown, out towards the end of Long Island where Grandma
and Popu had a summer place. I think it
was mostly a bit of land with an outhouse, water from a pump and maybe some
shelter for the adults. I think us kids
slept on cots outdoors. Anyway, Dad’s
mandolin was the kind that has the bowl-shaped shell. I accidentally dropped one of his picks into it
but thought I had lost it on the ground.
We couldn’t find it and, since I wasn’t scolded much, I promptly forgot
about it. A week or two later at home; I
was fooling with the mandolin when there on the floor, in all its splendor, was
the pick I thought was lost. Well, I
contemplated the mysteries of the universe for a day or two, in awe that some
force in nature could cause a pick to disappear in one place and magically
reappear later, many miles away. When
Dad saw the pick, he unwittingly brought me back to reality with, “It must have
fallen into the bowl out on the Island, and then fell out here.” Oh, right!
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