This week I offer a couple of examples–the first a decade old, the second a recent notation from my wife's journal–illustrating the unexpected lighter side of distress.
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In our old house, the front door chime faithfully invited our usually-indifferent felines, Wiggy in particular, to inspect all new arrivals. So the delivery of a bouquet of gas-filled Mylar balloons raised no particular alarm.
Our son had rescued Wiggy at the ballpark from older boys with mischief on their minds. Small and scrawny, I initially named him Tiny Puss, T.P. for short. And since T.P. sounded a lot like teepee, another name for a wigwam, T.P. soon became Wigwam, eventually affectionately shortened to Wiggy. So like the two tents from which his name derived, teepee and wigwam, Wiggy was indeed "too tense."
The doorbell rang that fateful day, and Wiggy poked in his inquisitive nose to check out the bundle of bobbing, bouncing Mylar intruders. Had he know that balloons rub together with a fingernail-on-chalkboard sort of screech, the trouble soon to befall him might have been avoided. But being tightly wound by nature, the sounds of Mylar on Mylar emanating from strange airborne creatures lit the fuse of sudden escape.
On that particularly fateful day, however, baseboards awaiting painting, all properly ordered and numbered, stood propped against the walls like canes poles at a fishing derby.
Wiggy's first flight for safety quickly ended in cat to baseboard collision, strewing confusion about the room as the board fell onto its neighbors. And with each clatter, Wiggy rocketed into another board, only to have the whole jumble of tumbling lumber put a permanent warp in his character.
But we still laugh.
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I went to Garden Ridge and was slowing walking down each aisle, thinking, figuring, feeling, weighing, discussing with myself about stickers, stamps, punches, inks, die cuts, and other papers.
All the time I was bothered by a small woman who was also inching her way down the aisle. I did not ever look directly at her, but could see her out of my peripheral vision.
I would move to get away from her. Then my attention would be caught by … what? A pear stamp! Oh, I wish I could draw a pear like that…. Why is that lady still there… so close? Move down a bit.… Oh, a tiny scrapbook.… I could write a story. The book is already bound together…. Why is that little woman so close to me?
Oh, look! A stamp of a tiny basket, a flower, a pot…. I could make a birthday card from that.… I think that lady is deliberately staying close to me… almost touching me.…
Finally, I turn to confront her. And I do confront her. And just then I find myself face-to-face with a very nice, very short, low-to-the-ground, sticking-to-me-with- static-electricity-and-so-therefore- following-me-closely Happy Birthday balloon.
It was low on helium.
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It's no secret: appearances can be deceiving. And even obvious distress may have a lighter side–later.
Copyright 2003 James McAlister
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