Tag: silliness

Posted on

It’s a Mad, MAD Future

It’s a Mad, MAD Future

I remembered Al Jaffee the Fold-In Genius. I had forgotten Al Jaffee the futurist.

In case you think I’ve gone MAD, let me explain.

You may have seen the obituaries that went around recently proclaiming the death of MAD magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee at the age of 102. The impish Al was a key part of the magazine’s snark and satire, especially after creating the Fold-In … a back cover drawing that would set up a question, only to reveal a new drawing with a punchline answer when folded together. (“What favorite of both kids and parents is guaranteed to be around forever? … Discarded disposable diapers.”)

But as one CBC story reminded me, Jaffee also drew parody ads for the magazine, using a familiar Madison Avenue approach to promote completely outrageous things.

You know, like a phone that remembers what you just dialed even when you don’t.

Or a razor with multiple blades.

Or … well,  you get the idea.

I’m not saying that Jaffee had a pipeline to the future. Plenty of his ad gags turned out to be just that, products that were laughable then and now. But there were just enough hits to be a little scary. And that nails a basic truth: if you want to see what’s coming next, it helps if your glasses are a little cockeyed.

A lot of us live lives that assume tomorrow will be just like today, only with stranger music. From one angle, that doesn’t seem unreasonable. After all, we’re learning from experience and building reflexes, so we extrapolate from what we already know.

That works for a while … until it doesn’t. Even on a personal scale, we know this. A healthy life can change without warning. A job can go away or mutate beyond recognition. Yesterday’s friend can be tomorrow’s memory. Those kind of shocks hit hard.

And on a larger scale? Many science fiction authors have warned that they write great stories but poor prophecies. One ironic example: Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation,” a series of stories about experts in reading the future, had a galactic society with practically no computers. (He would eventually rectify that in the 1980s.)

Sure, sometimes something clicked. But the biggest successes have often come from writers who didn’t take the subject too seriously. Who were willing to be outright silly, in fact.

Take “A Logic Named Joe,” a hilariously screwball story from the 1940s that also happened to anticipate personal home computers, linked databases, natural-language queries and parental controls.

Or “The Jetsons,” where videoconferencing was so common that even doctor’s visits were done remotely.

Or of course, Al Jaffee, who thought he was kidding when he mock-advertised a stamp that would save you the trouble of licking it.

What can I say? Sometimes it pays to be weird.

In fact, it can be downright liberating.

It’s not natural for many of us. After all, it’s risky to break with what “everyone knows.” Most of us don’t like the idea of looking silly or taking a step into the unknown.

But the unknown comes whether we’re ready or not. And sometimes yesterday’s conventional thinking proves to be sillier than even the most satirical writer could have dreamed.

We don’t know everything. And when we admit that – when we leave ourselves open to new possibilities, however strange – that’s when we can start to build a future.

Maybe Al taught us well. Look at the picture in front of you, sure … but be willing to fold it up to see the answer you need.

It’s a MAD idea. But it just might work.

Posted on

Stalking Joy

“Scott,” Heather asked in a voice that was just a shade too serious, “I have a very important favor to ask you.”

“OK …” I tilted my head slightly, waiting to see what she would ask for next.

“Would you …. be celery for me?”

I laughed hard. Oh. THIS game.

“Sure!” I said, still grinning as I stretched up to my full height with my arms at my side and curved my shoulders inward. A perfect celery stalk imitation, if I do say so myself.

“How about … a turnip?”

My knees bent into squatting posture, hands over my head to form the greens.

“A carrot?”

Back up tall, still with the greens, but this time shoulders out and feet pointed. Now both of us were laughing.

“Thank you, bear,” Heather said, a smile as bright as any Christmas tree on her face.

None of this was going to win me a spot in the revival of “VeggieTales” or impress anyone with my mastery of interpretive dance. This was a gag  so old that it went back to the earliest years of our marriage, so old that we’d practically forgotten how it started. It may have even begun with the typical new husband declaration of “I’d do anything for you!” and a mischievous wifely response of “Oh, really?…”

Whatever the cause, it’s been one of our secret weapons. A way of snatching back a little silliness from a stressful world.

And oh, has it been stressful lately.

Picture an Advent calendar designed by Dr. Evil and you get the idea. Instead of a chocolate, each new day has revealed a different little ball of anxiety. Like straining my back while fixing a shower. Or racing Heather to the ER for Crohn’s issues. Or having our ward Missy turn into a squirming ball of unhelpfulness at a dental appointment. Or a series of minor and not-so-minor breakdowns in the house. And that’s without adding the magic of 2020 to the mix.

You know what I’m talking about, I’m sure. It seems to go with the holidays, whether it’s traffic on the streets or a missing person at the table. And it all gets underlined by the constant reminders that this is a season of joy.

Joy?

It’s a conundrum that Charles Dickens himself knew very well. “What’s Christmas time to you,” his Ebenezer Scrooge groused, “but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer?”

Sometimes joy can be a very hard candle to light. And seeing it stay dark makes it even harder. Resignation’s much easier, an emotional distancing to go with the social, a mask worn over the heart instead of the face.

But it doesn’t have to be.

Because joy isn’t something we make. It’s something we make ourselves open to.

Joy lives in the unexpected moment.

When we turn a corner and Missy shouts “Lookit! Look!” at a house ablaze with lights from every seam, joy has come.

When a friend leaves something on the doorstep without warning just because it’s the season, joy has visited.

And yes, when Heather asks for a vegetable imitation and the laughter of 22 years of marriage suddenly breaks out across both of us, joy is in the middle of it all.

It’s still close at hand. Waiting.

Even in 2020.

May joy find you this season, wherever you are, whatever your circumstances. May you always be open to it, even in the hardest of times. Whatever flock you’re watching by night, may it give you the chance to watch the skies as well.

Be ready. Be hopeful.

And if you can, be celery, too.

It’s amazing how useful that can be.

Posted on

Colors of the Heart

When Heather sent me the Fourth of July picture, it shone brighter than any firework.

Heather had gone to her sister’s to enjoy a holiday get-together, while I stayed home with a headache. That meant that our Unwritten Family Protocol #23 was in effect: when one half of the couple is absent from a family event, the other shall send photos whenever possible. It keeps us both there in spirit. And it gives us endless opportunities to crack each other up.

Like now.

I looked at my phone – and burst helplessly into admiring laughter. Heather looked like she had been mugged by a Hawaiian edition of the Lucky Charms leprechaun. Around her neck were a solid curtain of rainbow-colored leis, setting off the dazzle of her tie-dye shirt perfectly. Another array of multicolored hair decorations completed the ensemble, along with an over-the-top “Don’t you wish you had all this?” expression on her face.

She looked absolutely beautiful.

Heather’s colors were back. And nothing on earth could have been better medicine.

***

We’re an interesting pair. We have been for almost 21 years. (The big day comes later this month.) Of the two of us, I’m the “social introvert” – the one who makes phone calls, acts in plays, and generally knows how to break the ice without falling in. But I’m also the somewhat conventional one, the guy in slacks and a button-down who reminds our ward Missy not to keep the radio cranked too high.

Heather … well, she may be the quieter of the two of us when it comes to setting up a vet appointment or having to order pizza. But she’s also the more fearless – curious, challenging expectations, and completely unafraid of looking silly. (Does it surprise anyone that she was originally going to be a teacher someday?)

And when she’s on, she wants color. It might be a brilliantly patterned skirt, a tie-dye with Bob Ross on it … she even once carried a book bag that had butterfly patches from corner to corner. She can be more restrained when the event calls for it, and every bit as lovely, but she’s at her best when she can truly enjoy herself.

Which makes it really unfair that those moments can be so rare.

** *

Heather has MS. And Crohn’s disease. And ankylosing spondylitis (which sends my spellcheck into a coma). And a host of allergies to a long list of foods and medicines. And … well, you get the idea.

We’re not sure whether to blame aliens, Rocky Flats, or a script writer who got addicted to movies-of-the-week. But the net result is that Heather’s batteries only allow so much, while her pain sensors allow much too much.

There are good days. Or hours. Or minutes. But she has to measure herself, conserve energy, rest often, pick her times.

In short, she often has to mute her colors.

And I know it drives her crazy.

It’s been an ongoing lesson for both of us – the kind that makes you grit your teeth and wish for the end of the school year, but a lesson all the same. One about endurance and patience and going through a lot of gray to get back to the colors again.

And especially, that it’s OK not to be OK with it.

Most of us are going through something we don’t want. You don’t need the list. You know the list, and which item belongs to you. And most of the time we find a way to deal as best we can.

But it’s OK to not like it. It’s OK to know it’s not fair. It’s OK to let yourself go sometimes and get upset about it, to refuse to be a passive piece on the board.

It’s OK to feel and not just be a shade of forgotten gray.

And when the better times come, it’s OK to enjoy it. To be a little wacky. To let your colors shine at last.

Rare things are precious. So treasure a rare joy when you can seize it. Maybe even take a silly picture or two.

The smile it creates just might be your own.

Posted on

It’s the Rail Thing

It’s McTrue.

Quite a while back, I recounted the saga of Boaty McBoatface, the British polar research vessel that was christened by an internet poll (Awwww!) only to have the name rejected as frivolous by the Powers That Be (Booo!). The decision disappointed lovers of silliness and members of the media – or is there a distinction? – who had to settle for the minor victory of calling the craft “also known as…” in every relevant story and online posting from here until the Sun flames out.

But! There has been a new development!

We take you now to Stockholm, where Reuters reports that a Swedish railway operator has named one of its trains through a public poll. The train operator publicly embraced the new name, which is … yes, really … Trainy McTrainface.

And no, this was not a reluctant bowing to the ever-strange mind of the internet. If anything, MTR Express gloated in a statement that, where Britain had ignored the voice of the people, this newly chosen name “will be welcomed by many, not just in Sweden.”

All that was missing was Ringo Starr to do the narration, accompanied by a certain tank engine theme song. (And if you didn’t want that earworm in your head … oops.)

OK, it’s ridiculous. It’s not going to bring justice, health care, and a free copy of the works of Elvis Presley to every human being on the globe. But if it brings a chuckle and a smile for just a minute, that’s not to be despised.

In fact, I’ll go beyond that. It shows how powerful a force simple joy can be.

We’ve seen the opposite for a while. Anger can rally people. Fear can make them huddle together against a perceived foe or danger. Suspicion can fuel talk, and theorizing, and endless opportunities for those with an agenda to promote. After a while, it becomes a feedback cycle, a circle that draws ever tighter against a seemingly threatening world.

The trouble is, it’s hard to build anything when your fists are clenched. Anger and fear provide plenty of enemies to defeat, but little to raise in their place. It’s a hunger that always needs to be fed, so that anyone could migrate from “us” to “them” with little warning,  from a wielder of the weapon to its newest target.  Even in the less intense cases, it’s fatiguing to always be looking over your shoulder … or even harmful, if it means you don’t see a crack in the sidewalk.

Building requires wonder.

It needs a desire to explore and consider the different.

It responds to hands that are open to tools, minds that are open to questions, lives that are open to the possibility of something that hasn’t been there before.

It may even need a bit of the cockeyed. Puns work (as much as they do) because someone can see two meanings of a word at once. Ideas work because someone can see two states of being at once – what’s in the world now, and what could be.

That’s how you build ideas, companies, inventions, stories, nations. And at its best, it sparks a joy and enthusiasm that can carry multitudes in its wake.

Not every idea will be good. Not every dream will bear fruit. But all of it can open a door to conversation instead of throwing up a wall.

“Don’t just tell me the quarterback sucks – tell me who should be playing.”

“Don’t just tell me the program won’t work – tell me what would work better.”

“Don’t just tell me the story doesn’t speak to you – help me craft one that can.”

It can be silly. It can be profound. But if it’s building joy instead of sapping hope, then we’re on the right track.

Even if it’s an unusual McTrain of thought.

Posted on

Say McWhat?

A couple of years ago, our dog Duchess acquired a middle name for the first time.

“Her middle name is Hunter,” declared a young boy at one of Missy’s summer softball games – a player who, by amazing coincidence, was named Hunter himself. As the pronouncement was made, Heather and I silently tested out the new addition to our timid canine.

Duchess Hunter Rochat. Hm.

It wasn’t bad. And it fit her old habit of chasing down every rabbit in the backyard that she could find, back in her younger days in Kansas. So, without further ado or ceremony, Duchess Hunter Rochat it was.

If only things were that simple for the British.

Some of you may have been following one of the sillier stories in the news cycle: a $300 million polar research boat for the United Kingdom whose name was thrown open to an online poll. The National Environment Research Council was probably hoping for a name connected with penguins, or explorers, or something else sober and traditional.

What it got was over 124,000 votes for “Boaty McBoatface.”

The name had been thrown out as a joke by a former BBC host, then took on a life of its own. By the end of the contest, according to The Guardian, it was crushing the competition with four times the votes of the second-place entry.

Alas, this week, Science Minister Jo Johnson threw cold water on the proceedings. She said the British government would review all the submissions in order to find a more “suitable” name.

McBoo.

“Admittedly, calling a boat Boaty McBoatface was a bad idea, voted on by idiots,” Guardian columnist Stuart Heritage said. “But it was our bad idea.”

I’m often a bit skeptical of Internet democracy. But this time around, I’ve got to agree. It may be ridiculous. It may be downright stupid. But it honestly deserves to survive, no matter what the regret by the gray-faced bureaucrats.

McWhy? Consider this:

1) The National Environmental Research Council wanted to attract more attention to its scientific activities through the contest. It might be fair to say, mission accomplished.

2) As my sister pointed out, it makes an excellent object lesson for anyone conducting an internet contest. When you make a choice open-ended instead of giving a pre-set ballot to choose from, you can never be quite sure what you’re going to get. I mean, imagine if Dave Barry had gotten hold of this one. (He didn’t, did he?)

3) It’s fun. Utter, glorious, stupendously silly fun. And to be honest, we need a bit more of that in the world these days.

Sure, we face serious problems everywhere we look. There’s always a crisis to consider, a candidate to defend, a cause that’s earnest and urgent. And as we all know, it doesn’t take much to stir up an online fist fight around any of these, full of sound and fury and not much real conversation.  Often, the sheer heat of the “debate” protects any of it from being read, unless you’re already a partisan of one side or another.

In the midst of all this, a boat that sounds like it came off the set of Thomas the Tank Engine might be a much-needed piece of whimsy.

Not everything has to be life-or-death. In the physical world, something put under pressure too long will deform or break. Minds need to release pressure, too, for much the same reason. And if it’s by laughing at something silly that isn’t hurting anyone – well, why McNot?

The British used to be famous for eccentricity. Surely the nation that gave the world Mr. Bean, Doctor Who, and the makeup artist for Keith Richards can accept one more excuse to sit back and laugh at itself for adding a little more weirdness to the world.

It’s healthy. It’s refreshing. It breaks people out of their ruts for a moment and makes them smile. So why not bow to the inevitable?

Or just call it Hunter. You know. Whatever floats your McBoat.

Posted on

Do I Feel A Draft?

As a species, we humans are really good at hanging onto silly traditions.

For example, there’s the bizarre idea that groundhogs are expert meteorologists.

Or the concept that our lives are immeasurably improved by adding or subtracting an hour of sleep every year. (As always, I promise to give my vote for life to the politician who succeeds in killing Daylight Saving Time.)

But for sheer useless levels of why-the-heck-do-they-still-do-that, it’s hard to beat registering for a non-existent draft.

Most of you know what I’m talking about, especially my fellow male Americans who have turned 18 since 1973. We’re the group who at one time, under the dire penalty of law usually reserved for the destruction of mattress labels, have had to register for … well, essentially nothing. Once upon a time, that small piece of paper could have gotten you sent to a strange land with a deadly weapon. Today, your library card carries more potential to change your life (especially with my overdue fees).

For over 40 years, it’s been a ritual without meaning, sort of like discussing the chances of a Denver Nuggets NBA championship. So naturally, there’s a chance we may expand it.

Yes, really.

Starting this year, American women became eligible to serve in combat roles for the first time. So naturally, in February, someone in Congress decided that meant women should also be eligible for the draft. If, you know, there were a draft. Which there isn’t likely to ever be. But still – the piece of paper must be filled out, yes?

But there’s also a competing bill, drafted (my apologies) in part by two Colorado congressmen, Democrat Jared Polis and Republican Mike Coffman, and which got a hearing on the radio airwaves this week. This one would also make men and women equal in the eyes of Selective Service … by abolishing Selective Service altogether.

Staggering. I mean, think of all the pencils that would suddenly no longer have a use!

I suppose continuing the Selective Service registration for our 18-to-25-year-olds might make some sense if there were any realistic chance that this country might revive conscription again. And let’s face it – there’s a better chance of seeing Peyton Manning change his mind and come back for one more season with the Denver Broncos than there is of seeing Uncle Sam revert to a draft. (Given recent news, it looks like there’s a better chance of seeing Brock Osweiler come back, too, which is another story and requires paying attention to a different sort of draft altogether.)

Conscription is really good at putting together a really large army really fast. When your biggest threat is another nation-state with a big army of their own, it’s hard to beat for effectiveness. Think of Revolutionary France, surrounded by foes (and then deciding to do a little conquest themselves). Or the Union and Confederacy, locked in mortal combat. Or the 1940s U.S.A., needing to quickly bulk up its forces to take down Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

But warfare has changed. Society has changed. In an age of fighting terrorists, insurgents, and other irregular combatants, it’s not as useful a tool. The last time we put conscription to use, we not only generated a large army, we also generated protests, trips to Canada, and really bizarre stories of how so-and-so managed to avoid the draft. (My personal favorite involved a friend who was called for his draft physical during Vietnam, only to be marked 4-F when someone forgot to plug in the device that was supposed to give him his hearing test. “Raise your hand when you hear the tone.” “Uh … OK.”)

We have a volunteer force now, a highly-trained force of people who actually asked to be there. It’s worked pretty well. Barring a massive change in historical trends, it’s liable to keep doing so.

So why keep the pretty, useless (and pretty useless) cards?

Real bipartisan cooperation seems to be pretty rare these days. When we get it, maybe we should listen. By all means, make men and women equally eligible for Selective Service – as in, not eligible at all.

And then, once we’ve got that under our belt, let’s do something about that lost hour of sleep, OK?

Posted on

Sing it Out

Singing waiters, rejoice. Your time of birthday deliverance is at hand.

If you’ve ever been out to eat, you know that there are three certainties in modern casual dining: that a tip is 20 percent, that the TV with the game you’re interested in isn’t visible from your table, and that if it’s your birthday, you will be humiliated by a team of waiters singing anything but “Happy Birthday.” You may hear the William Tell Overture. (“Merry day of birth to you, have some cake and candles too!”) You may get painfully rewritten lyrics set to “Stand by Me” or “Kill the Wabbit” … uh, I mean “Flight of the Valkyries.” But you will not get the classic off-key grade-school anthem that has shattered eardrums since time immemorial.

Until now.

A federal court recently ruled that “Happy Birthday’s” copyright is dead. More than dead. According to the judge, the song should have been out of copyright 80 years ago, making its rights the musical equivalent of a George Romero zombie movie. (“Caaaaaaaaaake.”)

Silly argument? Not for the owner and not for anyone wanting to belt out the birthday ballad in public. In fact, “Happy Birthday” has been big business, generating about $2 million a year in royalties from movie producers, restaurants and anyone else who wanted the song and didn’t want a visit from the Warner-Chappell attorneys.

I’ll write that again. Two million dollars a year. For a song that pre-dates World War I.

OK, that does seem silly.

Mind you, this isn’t a diatribe against having copyright at all, or patents, or trademarks, or all the other wonderful things that encourage ideas and ensure a creator gets something of what’s coming to them. (Mark Twain famously said that a country without patent laws was like a crab, only able to travel sideways or backwards.) But it is possible to stay at the party too long. And when “fair compensation” starts to turn into “I’m holding you up because I can,” that’s when people start to object.

We saw a more serious version of this recently in the medical world. The media – both mass and social – exploded after the new owner of a common AIDS drug, Daraprim, announced that its price would go up from $13.50 to $750 a dose. By most estimates, the drug costs about $1 a dose to make.

The word “outrage” doesn’t really go far enough. Twitter went nuclear. Everyone from patients to politicians added their denunciations. And within a day or two of the online fire and brimstone, a white flag went up – Daraprim’s price would go down again. (By how much has not yet been said as I write this.)

Call it supply and demand in vivid action. An owner can charge what he likes for a product. But if no one wants to pay it – if people are actively offended by paying it – it’s time to find another price or another product.

At the bottom of all this is a much-derided word: fair. “Life’s not fair,” we’re told over and over again. But one of our more admirable qualities as a species is a rock-bottom belief that it should be. Granted, sometimes we go too far – anything can go too far – but for the most part, it’s a guide to common decency, empathy, and all the qualities encapsulated in “liberty and justice for all.”
Fairness means we look out for each other, because one day it might be ourselves. It means we think about what we do and why. It means we don’t take unjust advantage of a situation.

We’re not perfect about it. We’re not going to be. But the fact that we still care about trying says something good about us.

Maybe it’s like anything else – if we keep trying, it gets easier. It might even become a piece of cake.

And when it does, we’re all set to sing.

Posted on

Nonsense and Nonsense Ability

The weekly faceoff between me and my column had just begun. As usual, the battle was closely matched.

“So honey,” I called out to my wife Heather, “what should I write about this week?”

No hesitation.

“Turnips!” she called out.

I laughed, loud and long. After 16 years of marriage, I really should have known better.

The turnips are a running gag that began long before I met Heather. She started making that wisecrack in high school, though she’s no longer clear on why. It may have been due to a random episode of Blackadder or her love of medieval history, where turnips may appear on any random page. It may have even started with her love of  the “Little House on the Prairie” books, which include the deathless words “Carrie loved to eat a raw turnip.”

“I want that tattooed,” she joked. At least, I think she’s joking. With root vegetables, one can never be too sure.

Wherever it came from, it’s been here to stay. Turnips have sneaked onto grocery lists, into text messages and amidst quiet moments in otherwise ordinary conversations. One time, I even called her bluff and brought some home from the store after a grocery run. Heather was surprised, amused and a little perplexed.

In roughly 20 years of turnip jokes, you see, she had never actually used one in a meal.

“I should have had them laminated,” she said.

Weird? You haven’t known us long enough. While turnips may produce (har-har) our best punchlines, it’s far from our only bit of mild insanity. There’s the mandatory sound effect when someone says they’ll be “back like a flash” (psheewwww!), or the back-and-forth razzing about the romantic qualities of Bob Dylan, or singing the names of Heather’s medical conditions. (Yes, if you ever want to enliven the Mozart Requiem, just start singing along with “AN-ky-LOS-ing … SPON-dy-LIT-is!”)

It’s ridiculous. Even silly. And I think it’s why we’ve survived as long as we have.

A lot of things get promised when you enter a marriage: for better or worse, for richer or poorer, for Buffs or Rams, and so on. But I really think that somewhere in the wedding vows needs to be a promise to love each other “in sense and in nonsense.”

Yes, you want to take each other seriously. This is your partner, your love and your best friend, after all. But marriage throws a lot at you, from the life-and-death to the utterly mundane. It’s easy to drown and simply react to the next thing until you’re not one couple, you’re two people with Important Things that all need to be done Right Now.

Silliness is a way of taking the moment back.

It means stepping back and turning life cockeyed for a second, for no other purpose than a moment’s amusement.

It means calling on old memories of odd moments, because the best gags have deep roots.

And it means showing your partner that you still care. That you can reach outside yourself and spend an instant to make them smile, speaking in a language that only the two of you share.

The words may be ridiculous. But getting silly is serious business. “A laugh can be a very powerful thing,” Roger Rabbit once said – and really, if you can’t trust a cartoon rabbit, who can you trust?

OK, maybe that was a bit much even for me. Time to ground myself. To focus. To concentrate on weighty matters and serious things.

Things like … turnips.

Thanks, honey. That’s another one I owe you.

Posted on

Crash Landing

Before Disney and the heirs of Jim Henson sic an army of googly-eyed lawyers on me, I need to be clear about one thing. Cookie Monster did not eat my computer. But his disco past has a lot to answer for.

Yes, you read that right. And no, I have not been eating any brownies of questionable origin.

Like many celebrities, the Muppets cut a disco album in the ’70s. Two disco albums, in fact, which should demonstrate just how close to Armageddon the world was teetering in those days. And in the second album, with the shocking title of“Sesame Disco!”, the Big Blue One himself took the mic for the most heart-rending disco ballad since “Disco Duck.”

I speak, of course, of the immortal “Me Lost Me Cookie at the Disco.”

There are portions of one’s childhood that remain unforgettable. And if we ever perfect mechanical telepathy, scientists will discover that entire sectors of my brain are permanently tattooed with a thumping rhythm and the words “Me lost me cookie at the DIS-co! Me lost me cookie in the BOO-GIE MU-SIC!” So naturally, as an adult, I used the vast and awesome power of the Internet to inflict this on others.

My wife Heather nearly lost her own cookies laughing. It became a running family joke, something to dial up when nothing of less epic silliness would do. Which made it inevitable, of course, that we would introduce it to Missy.

At this point, there are three important things to understand about our developmentally disabled ward. Missy loves the Muppets. Missy also loves disco.

But Missy does not necessarily love the Muppets singing disco.

And so, when I mixed it into an evening YouTube session, Missy giggled. Then smiled. Then decided the joke had gone on long enough and punched the power button.

Now, even in these permissive modern times, there are still a few things you just don’t do. You don’t pull a car key out of the ignition at 80 mph. You don’t wear black and silver at a Broncos rally. And you really don’t turn off a computer in mid-stream.

“Wait!”

Too late.

When I brought everything back up, my word-processing files were among the walking wounded. About half of them had to be saved into a new format, document by painstaking document, in order to be usable at all.

I have seen many a parent recite under their breath “I love my child … I love my child … I love my child.” I think I’m beginning to understand.

But here’s the funny thing. It was worth it.

It was worth it because of the time spent laughing with Missy, however wrong a turn it may have taken.

It was worth it because of the enforced trip down memory lane. As I patched and ported my files, I discovered columns I’d forgotten I’d written, scripts I hadn’t performed in years, even parodies that made me smile one more time.

Most of all, it was worth it for the chance to underscore, without mortal injury, two fundamental truths of parenting: that accidents happen, and that even when they do, your people are still more important than your things.

Hug, forgive and learn.

I think if more of us remembered that, this would be a nicer world.

There’s still a few repairs to make. But it’ll be OK. Both the family and the machine will survive to make more memories, even if it occasionally takes a minor crisis to do so.

Sometimes, that’s just the way the Cookie Monster crumbles.

Posted on

The Saving Power of Silly

I’ve seen Missy the Charmer, Missy the Artist, even Missy the Ninja. But once in a while, our amazing lady decides to be Missy the Rebel instead.

Toothbrushes are firmly handed back, or dropped in the sink. “No.”

A sit-down strike begins at bedtime. “Don’t wan’.”

A storm begins on waking up, where every little thing seems to be wrong. “Noo!”

Sometimes it takes reason. Sometimes it takes time. Most of the time it’s challenging. When a disabled adult isn’t happy about something, but has trouble forming the words to say why, it often leaves you to go on guess, or inference, or memory.

Thankfully, on the stormiest days, I’ve got an ace in the hole. You see, I’m not just Scott the Writer, Scott the Guardian, or even Scott the Amateur Actor.

I’m also, when I need to be, Scott the Irritatingly Silly.

“Hi.”

Missy turns away, shaking her head.

“Hiiiii.” (Little kid voice)

Missy’s face scrunches, one hand making the “go away” gesture.

“Hiii.” (Gollum voice)

More waves, but now she’s fighting a smile.

“Hiii.” (Monster voice.)

The smile wins, turns into giggles.

“Isn’t he awful?” my wife Heather says from behind me, smiling herself. The impressions keep coming, Mel Blanc with twice the energy and half the talent, until all of us are laughing helplessly – Missy included.

What can I say? Silly works.

I’m not always sure why.  But I know it’s true of more than just Missy. Sometimes, at my own moments of low ebb and lower motivation, all it takes is a bit of the ridiculous to get my balance back. One recent round of the blues was shattered beyond repair by a long exchange of jokes about turning The Lord of the Rings into social media “click-bait.” (“Nine People Who Decided They Could Just Walk Into Mordor, And The Surprising Results!”)

OK, I’m a geek. But you get the idea.

Mind you, I wouldn’t try this at a funeral or to someone with chronic depression. But sometimes we just get ourselves on a feedback loop. Annoyance leads to annoyance, frustration to frustration, and each new irritant is harder to get rid of because we haven’t unloaded all the old ones yet. You know you’re grinding yourself down, but you’re not quite sure how to stop – sort of like being a Rockies fan in mid-July.

At a moment like that, it’s not always a bad thing to throw a wrench into the gears.

And silly makes a great wrench.

It interrupts the cycle. It reaches past the wall of thoughts and tweaks the instincts, for an immediate reaction. It turns the world upside down for a second, and gives you a new, more ridiculous angle.

It gives you permission to laugh. No, that’s not quite right. It surprises you into a laugh, and takes permission for granted.

Done right, that surprise moment of feeling good can start a new feedback cycle. One that leads in a better direction.

Maybe it’s appropriate that I’m thinking of this at Super Bowl season. After all, what could be sillier than watching a few dozen men in bright orange juggling a football? But for many, it reaches to the emotions in a different way, pushing aside other concerns in a burst of sheer exhilaration.

Instead of brooding on the past, or chewing on the future, you’re in the moment. And the moment doesn’t seem so bad.

Does it really work? Ask Missy sometime if you like.

Make sure to say hi.