Harnessing the healing power of snark
if you have spent an entire day trying to figure out the funniest way to describe your cat’s obsession with your new laptop.
(Like, is it funnier to say that you’re starting a self-help group entitled, “Help! My cat is in love with my computer!”, or to present it as a possible tabloid headline: “Impassioned feline inflamed by cyber-love”?)
It’s a happy, happy day here in our household, because my Internet connection has finally been restored.
For the past couple of weeks our connection has grown increasingly worse, and I have grown increasingly more crazed.
As my husband has flitted from his office, to his various business-related travel destinations, to his various hotels, all with their perfectly functioning Internet connections, I don’t think he was really getting just how frustrated I was. When I told him last night that I was ready to throw my brand-new laptop-which I had just received a month ago for my birthday-out the window, that seemed to spur him into action.
He got online and set up an appointment for a technician to come to our house today (did I mention that his Internet connection was working just fine?) So I was starting to feel much better, until he shared the following observation with me.
“I wonder if we have rodents that are chewing through our lines?”
Then he said, “What are the chances of you going down to the basement to check that out?”
Have you ever been under the influence of an irrational belief so strong that, despite absolutely knowing that you are totally making this fear up, and despite never once seeing any shred of evidence that there is cause for this fear, it still powerfully controls your behavior?
I am that way about snakes. I am terrified of snakes and, despite all evidence to the contrary, I am CONVINCED that huge groups of snakes totally surround our house. There are certain places around our house where I will never go because I just KNOW that the snakes are waiting there to get me.
That information is important to this story, because in order to get to our basement you have to go outside, down the deck stairs, and across the backyard. There is no access from inside our house. So my husband was asking me to go outside, in the dark, past two of the places where the imaginary snakes live, into the basement, where he was pretty sure I would find REAL rats.
On the one hand, I suppose I could have been flattered that he thought I was brave enough to do this by myself. But I decided to respond with, “Are you insane?!”, with a little dash of, “Have you met me?!” thrown in to “kick it up a notch.”
I am happy to say that it was not necessary for me to go down to the basement last night, and even happier to say that when the technician was here he did not say one single word about rodents. And now our Internet connection is working perfectly.
Now, if I could just figure out who to call about those imaginary snakes…
Do you remember this commercial from the 80’s?
Picture of an egg: “This is your brain.”
Picture of an egg frying in a pan: “This is your brain on drugs.”
Well, I’m feeling a real affinity for that commercial this morning. and I’m thinking that I could revive that ad campaign by making my own, updated version of that commercial. Only mine would not be about substance abuse. Mine would say, “This is my brain after four days of an extremely inflamed shoulder muscle, which was then poked with what felt like really sharp sticks, but was actually a licensed health care professional using medically approved health care tools.” Catchy, huh?
The purpose of my commercial would be to illustrate the process my mind undergoes as it searches for the perfect, most articulate, most precise method of utilizing swear words to describe this particular pain. (Hey, I never said my commercial would have any deep or meaningful purpose.)
Step 1: I mentally inventory all the “bad” words I know, often trying them out in a Fill-In-The-Blank, Complete The Following Sentence With The Best Word sort of situation.
For example, “_____, my shoulder hurts!” Or, “My shoulder hurts like_____!” (This is where all my years as a language teacher really come in handy.)
Step 2: Once I’ve settled on the perfect word I play around with it a bit, to see if there are any ways that I can embellish it.
For example, Can I string it out by adding extra syllables? Can I stress it in a different way? Can I pronounce it in a funny accent?
Step 3: Next I look for a catchy theme song or a kicky advertising jingle, in order to set my words to music.
I don’t need to provide an example here, because I know that if you’re reading this post, you’re already experimenting with this process for yourself.
Step 4: Generally by this time the pain meds have begun to kick in, so my song drifts down to the level of a mantra, or a tribal chant.
For example, “BUM, bum, bum, bum, BUM, bum, bum, bum, BU-um, BUM.”
I’m not really sure what happens next because, if all has gone according to plan, at this point I am finally asleep. Or, at the very least, I am enjoying the benefits of a heavily medicated stupor, cradled by this gentle lullaby: “BUM, bum, bum, bum, BUM, bum, bum, bum, BU-um, BUM.”
I’ve been very conscious of my mind lately, as I have been making a concerted effort to quiet down the mental chatter that is frequently taking place in my head. So this weekend after much breathing, visualizing, and cognitive retraining I was able to connect with a place of intense inner stillness and quietness.
And what did I encounter in this amazing place of clarity? A deep insight into the mystery of life? A powerful connection with the Divine? Actually, yes. But in the middle of those incredible experiences, somehow there was also still room for the following thought:
“Whatever it is I think I see, becomes a Tootsie Roll to me.”
So what that says to me is that apparently, I will never truly understand how the mind works, no matter how much I may study it.
For example, why is it that I often have trouble remembering simple things like my age and my phone number, yet I can recall almost the entire sign language alphabet which I learned in 1977 when I was in kindergarten?
And it’s not just my mind I don’t understand, either.
This weekend my husband and I were visiting some friends, one of whom was telling us about her brother’s recent wedding. She began by describing how her brother called her on a Thursday to tell her that he was getting married that following Monday. So she and her mother decided to fly out and help with the preparations. After running around all weekend they finally made it to the day of the wedding, and she and her mom were with the bride-to-be as she was getting her hair done for the ceremony.
Our friend: “So, she finally found someone to do her hair. He was a little person. You know, that’s what you’re supposed to call midgets now.”
Us: “Huh. That’s different.”
Our friend: “Yeah, so as he was doing her hair and riding around on his scooter…”
Us: (interrupting with snorts of laughter)
Us: “What?! He was riding a scooter?!”
Our Friend: “Well, yeah, because he couldn’t walk. So, anyway, I had to be his assistant and hand him his tools because his partner had to go out.”
Us: (the snorts have become shouts now)
Us: “What?! He was a gay midget hairdresser?”
Our Friend: “Yeah. But his partner isn’t a midget. He’s a regular-sized person.”
At this point further conversation became impossible, because my husband was laughing so hard that he was crying, and I was laughing so hard that I fell off of their couch and onto their living room floor.
But believe it or not, that was not the funniest part of this story. The funniest part was the fact that our friend told us this story with absolutely no reaction whatsoever. She. Never. Laughed. Once. And she honestly did not understand why we were in hysterics. She told the story in a tone of voice that suggested that gay, scooter-riding, hair-dressing midgets are a time-honored, traditional part of everyone’s nuptial experience.
I don’t really have anything more to add to this story, which I truly believe was a gift from the humor heavens. So to close, I will share with you the additional mental gem I received during my weekend of quiet contemplation:
“Pass, pass, pass, pass the Old El Paso.”
Saturday Morning, The One Day You Can Sleep In…
6:50 am-7:15 am: Your three cats take it in turn to physically harass you as you lay in bed, in punishment for your being out of cat food
7:16 am: The cat currently on “harassment rotation” uses your chest as a launching pad to leap up and attack another cat who, apparently, is not sticking to the schedule
7:17 am: Your husband is awakened out of a dead sleep by the sounds of you swearing like a sailor
7:18 am: Mopping up of all the blood
7:23 am: After clearing the bedroom of all cats your husband leaves for the grocery store which, fortunately for you, is open 24 hours a day
7:25 am: With nothing left to do but go back to bed, you find yourself mentally constructing the funniest way to present this story on your blog
7:30 am: Typing…
