Nothing makes any sense. They eat puffins in Iceland. The Cincinnati Airport is in Kentucky. No one can spell dachshund without first looking in a dictionary.
EZ-Open packaging isn’t. America’s Funniest Home Videos aren’t. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain. Monet and Manet were actually the same person.
I got up the other morning and started to open an EZ-Open package of bacon, I think. I forget what it was. Eventually I needed pliers and swear words, and whatever had been inside was turned into a kind of meat pudding.
There are people who own cars that honk when the cars are locked. Parking lots sound like goose ranches.
What else doesn’t make any sense? Glade Plug-in Air Fresheners. Non-dairy whitener. Hand talkers and mouth breathers. Rachel Ray. Why the NBA has a regular season.
One of the most important and innovative movies ever made, Citizen Kane, is predicated on Charles Foster Kane’s dying word: “Rosebud.” It doesn’t make any sense. I have been reading reviews about the movie ever since I was in film classes at UCLA, and no one has ever pointed it out before, until today, in The Denver Post!
My best friend just called me on his new cell phone to apologize for calling me on his new cell phone. He knew I would be disappointed.
He and I and Boo Radley were just about the only ones left who didn’t have cell phones. I need a cell phone like I need another nipple, and I don’t need the three I’ve already got.
My high school English teacher forbade us to use “got” because she thought it was a strident-sounding word. She was right, of course, but I have gotten use to it.
Boo Radley’s next door neighbor was a pasty kid named Dill. Dill was based on Harper Lee’s pasty friend, Truman Capote.
Years ago I was at a Denver Bears baseball game in Mile High Stadium and a guy was working his way through the 1,200 spectators with his Tomorrowland samples of the future: cellular phones.
He was allowing people to call anyone they wanted. Big wow. By the time he reached me I was at full curmudgeon (see: W.C. Fields, H.L. Mencken, Dorothy Parker). When she was told that Coolidge was dead, Dorothy said, “How could they tell?”
“Why the hell would I want to call someone from a baseball game?” I asked Samples. He looked at me like I didn’t believe in zombies or Shriners or apple pie.
“Heck, Shoeless Joe.” he said,” They’re not just for calling people from baseball games. Why, you’ll be able to make phone calls in art galleries, restaurants, grocery stores. Churches! They’ll be everywhere. Airports, subways, wooden leg factories. You name it.”
Turns out he was correct. Cell phones are everywhere – to the extent that a lot of users go through withdrawals if their phones are out of charge or range or simply misplaced.
On a flight recently, the man next to me held his phone to his head like Linus’s blanket, until he was given permission to use it again.
I was in the men’s room at the Detroit airport and, um, standing next to a gentleman who was making a call. I hoped that it was important, because I began to talk to my imaginary friend Carl.
“Carl, no, Carl. Beavers didn’t hide your shampoo. I did.” This went on and on, and I said something about dwarves and marshmallows before I flushed.
Cell phone anxiety even has a name: nomophobia. Tuxophobia, on the other hand, is the fear of inadvertently inviting a penguin to your wedding.
There is no one else in the room with Charles Foster Kane when he says, “Rosebud.” His dying words could just as easily have been, “Puffin on whole wheat. Oh, and a pickle.”
Craig Marshall Smith lives in Highlands Ranch.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
