Within these columns, Gentle Reader, I must admit I’m guilty of my own presumption of sagacity far too often.
It’s all Petey’s fault…well, mostly his. There is though, woven within my very blood cells, the understanding of how everyone everywhere should behave, and the need to share that knowledge. I am, like Lisa Simpson, a know-it-all with a big mouth.
But back to Petey.
Not long after we got our first computer, when The Kid was a toddler, my ever-loving spouse asked me to help him send an email to a high school friend of his whom I had never met.
I happen to glance at the note, and spotted my name, “…and I married a wise woman, named debbie.” Not only had he never said this to me, no one that’s ever known me said that about me. So, you’ll understand why my reaction may have been slightly abrupt.
“Whadaya mean by that?”
Then Petey earned himself a batch of cookies when he said, “Well, you are.”
And really, doesn’t wise woman sound so very much nicer than busybody?
On a related vein, I’d like to tell you a parable from my life.
The Kid and I had gone to Wake Forest and were on our way home.
We were on Highway 98 when we started seeing these signs. You know how sometimes your memory of something can have a weird discrepancy with the IRL events?
Well for some reason, I remember a purple monkey at this point. But The Kid assures me with a slightly worried frown, that there was in fact, no monkey. But, as the wise man said, “Monkeys make everything funnier.”
Anyway.
The sign consisted of two words and one exclamation mark: Go Ape!
Now, I don’t know anything about your life, Gentle Reader, but in the lives of The Kid and me, it’s been a minute since we were invited to “Go Ape!”. So it kinda got us talking. For probably 15-20 miles, we discussed, half-jokingly, about whether we should “Go Ape!”.
But it was a very academic question because in a happy coincidence, the path to going ape just happened to lie on our path toward home (it really wouldn’t have surprised if the signs heralded our house, in the way that in the 1930s one might find a sign proclaiming the existence of an eight-foot chicken playing the violin).
But then.
Our primate provocation, “Go Ape!” gave us a heads up that soon our paths would diverge, we had a decision to make—if we wanted.
It’s nuts, right? Two grown people, actually, seriously considering going ape. Whatever that meant.
And then it was there, the divergence. And we…
we…
we went team simian.
And, began driving further, and further, and further out of our way. But we had thrown in our hand, and wherever this road led, The Kid and I, carried aloft by Agent Colson (The Kid’s wheels), were in it.
The road eventually led to the location of “Go Ape!”, a high ropes course of climbing, zip-lining, you get the picture.
And this time a possible dilemma had no horns; “Go Ape!” was closed.
We turned around in the parking lot and headed home, a little disappointed by the rather mundane nature of our destination.
But the charge we got from just going for it, just saying to the world, “Yeah, we’re following two-word road signs armed with equal parts abandon and ignorance, so what?”
So, every once in awhile, when you’re out with your kid, or squeeze, or squad, or alone; please, Gentle Reader, I implore you,
“Go Ape!”
Thanks for your time.
Contact debbie at d@bullcitymom.
I know that in these early days it’s impossible to imagine anything other than shiny optimism, innocence, and clean diapers, but you only have to take a peek at poor old 2017 to see how very badly it all can go. That pathetic year is a dirty, misshapen failure, half crawling, half dragged off the calendar and into the history books. It had very few friends, and hardly anyone will miss it. Even the folks who seemed to be having a good run ended the year in a less than glorious place.
So, here are a few recommendations that might help to make you, 2018, less catastrophic than your older sibling.
There are many, many people who were completely caught off guard by you, 2018. That’s because they had their heads buried in their smartphones. These are the same people who’s lives will be over with nothing to show for it except for bathroom and brunch selfies, with no memory of why they were in that particular bathroom, or who else was at that picturesque meal.:fill(transparent,1)/promote-webinar-on-social-media-56a6d01d3df78cf772905e47.jpg)
I have many perfectly nice and sane friends who regularly sing the praises of Facespace and Twattle. They talk about how it keeps them in touch with family and connects them with treasured long-lost school chums. Here’s my query: if they were so treasured, how’d you lose touch in the first place?
Feverish social media use is illustrative of the human need for justice and the desire for complicated matters to have simple, black and white solutions. That’s why people will learn of something that seems outrageous at breakfast and will have tried, convicted, and publicly pilloried the culprit by lunchtime. Then three days later when the full story comes out which explains the unexplainable, nobody cares because everybody’s busy watching some Turkish dude salt meat (I swear-google it).
Thanks for your time.
bull city mom 