You are walking to your daughter’s school. You have a backpack containing her rollerblades slung over your shoulder. You are making this hike – something you’ve never done before – to surprise her with the chance to rollerblade home. Because she loves rollerblading. And because sometimes, you gotta bring the magic for no reason at all.
Google Maps says your walk will take 41 minutes each way. (It’s more like 30.) To pass the time as you walk, you open Facebook. And you groan as you see that today, just like every day, 9 out of 10 posts relate to politics. It’s as if we are in a round-the-clock, perpetual election cycle. Which of course, we are. And that’s to be expected – perhaps lauded given the passionate resistance the new administration has inspired. But still, you remain nonplussed as to how to balance your need to be an informed citizen with your need to retain your sanity. Because Facebook used to be fun. And even if you didn’t find the Orwellian nightmare of Donald J. Trumputin as POTUS to be horrifying (you do, you DO!), you would still lament the relative paucity of self-effacing humor on social media these days. And the dearth of “inappropriate” jokes. And the absence of farcical narratives about epic adventures that aren’t really adventures at all, but just life.
And as you walk alone on the sidewalk, you adopt the affected, vaguely aristocratic voice that you use when you’re about to write something but haven’t yet realized that you are about to write something. And you ask aloud: “Where are the amusing anecdotes? The bad puns? The mixed metaphors which are somehow endearing in spite of themselves? Whimsy, why hast though forsaken me?!”
And as you are speaking to the mailboxes and street lamps, you realize that most people don’t actually write that kinda stuff. If they write at all, most people offer things like “Outrageous!” or “Do you believe this?!” and then paste a link to HuffPo or Fox News. And that’s fine, of course. But if these fields of political angst are to be sown with other seeds – especially your preferred variety of nonsense – then it apparently falls to you.
And so you take a quick mental inventory of the silly things that have happened in your life recently. But none really measure up. Perhaps your life has been more dreary and uneventful than usual lately. Or perhaps you’re out of practice at finding the funny. But damnit, that’s what you do, right?
You tentatively start to peck out a meager offering about the one-sided lunch packing contest you launched with your wife without her knowledge. It happened because your daughter had complained the day before that all she’d been given for lunch was a sandwich and some apple sauce. And she hates apple sauce. And Erin had packed the lunch, but it’s really your fault, because you let her pack the lunch. And as a woman whose own lunch regularly consists of a single stick of string cheese and thoughts about breast milk advocacy, she has no idea what a proper lunch even is. And so, to surreptitiously win the hearts of your children through their stomachs, you resolve to make things right. And you cook a pound of bacon at 10PM so it can be piled high on their turkey and cheese sandwiches. And you boil eggs, and peel carrots, and meticulously choose walnuts that don’t “look weird”, and include a half dozen other items, packing four lunches worthy of Paul Bunyan. And you scrawl little cartoon characters on index cards with notes to each of the kids that you slip into the boxes just so they know that this epic feast was brought to them by Daddy. Because in love and war, you fight dirty.
But that story’s not all that funny. Or at least it’s not good enough. So what else?
Wait, did Trump just propose a 20% tax on imports from Mexico? What the Hell is he thinking? That tax is just going to be passed on to the “forgotten workers” he’s pretending to serve. Are there any sane people advising him?
Damnit! Get back on point dude. Let’s see . . . Maybe you could peck out a note about your silly hair plan? You recently watched the Netflix version of A Series of Unfortunate Events with your kids. And you had offhandedly stated your intention to grow your hair out and style it like Count Olaf. And the boys had chuckled, but the girls had lost their minds, howling in despair and begging you not to do it. And the disparity of their reactions struck you. And it was the same each time it came up over the next few days. And you realize that the boys don’t really believe your pronouncement, but the girls took it as gospel truth. And then it dawns on you as to why: you rarely tease your girls, and you always keep your word to them. If you say “I will get you a kitten” or “you can go to Italy this summer”, it happens. By contrast, you routinely make proclamations to the boys that you don’t mean, or which are untrue and intended for comedic effect. Like “Good news! We found an orphanage that will take you” or “Today is the day I abandon you in the woods.” And these statements are commonly delivered with a deadpan conviction that your boys have learned to ignore or even roll with, improvising off of your untruths. And you don’t know why you have this apparent double standard, but it seems natural that your kids would have opposed reactions to the things you say. And so, like Schroedinger’s Cat, you simultaneously exist in two equal and opposite states, one in which you aspire to horrifying hair, and another in which you do not.
Dude, what the Hell are you writing? This isn’t funny either, AND you just compared yourself to Schroedinger’s Cat. Is it time for an intervention? Maybe just step back for a second and check the Times . . .
Jesus. Did Trump just basically ban Muslims from our country? Doesn’t he know that’s illegal?! What is happening?! It’s like watching your grandmother be mauled by the same grizzly bear that ate your dog.
Take a breath. Find the funny. Maybe you gotta go back to the archives?
The time you were house sitting for a buddy and literally shit the bed?
That time you howled in delight as you publicly and exuberantly confused an instant replay of an improbable half court shot for a second such shot by the exact same player?
The time you took a college girlfriend literally when she invited you to stay in her dorm room while she and her roommate were away for a weekend instead of your scummy fraternity house, and you made yourself at home, only to have her return incredulous that you had accepted her offer, and demand reimbursement for or replacement of the sunflower seeds you had eaten.
The time as a first year associate when you wrote – I mean, some nameless hero wrote – an anonymous email to your whole law firm chastising the partners for not raising associate salaries, which caused the firm to announce giant raises for associate salaries the very next day, but also caused several members of the management team to ask around about which associate would have been most likely to analogize to Hamlet and The Iliad (as the unknown author of the email had). Who indeed?
You haven’t settled on a topic when you arrive at the school. Your daughter walks out to find you sitting on a bench with her blades in your lap and a smile on your face. And she squeals with delight when she realizes what this means. And as you travel home together, she alternates between holding your hand and skating up ahead of you to then circle back and meet you again. And as she skates, she makes little satisfied sighs or cooing noises. And the sun is shining, and she speaks of what a gorgeous day it is.
And it is easy to forget that THIS is the stuff of life. Yes, our nation is divided and in pain. And yes, the headlines are mortifying. But you can’t let all the bad drown out the good. And the kind. And the love. And the funny.
And so you revisit the meandering half-thoughts you wrote on your phone. And you glom them all together in one big mess. Is it full of funny punch lines? No. Is it your best work? Far from it. But sometimes in a storm, any port will do. In the fog, we all search for a light of some kind, however dim. And so you offer this: on a day last week, amid a tumult of headlines and national anxiety, a father walked an hour to delight his kid. And he’s trying to redevelop his sense of humor. That’s it. That’s what I’ve got. But it’s a start.