~a column by Colleen O’Brien
When Canadian author Margaret Atwood (The Handmaids’ Tale) was asked, “Is there anything that gives you hope about your southern neighbor?” she replied that she does not think it’s over for America yet, as many gloomy commentators have been writing the past few weeks. Her answer was surprising…and funny:
“I think America is an ornery and diverse enough place that it would be very hard to get everybody to line up and do some kind of weird salute, even though the country has had a fascist undercurrent since the 1930s or ‘40s. I’m counting on Americans’ crankiness and orneriness to keep things from going too far in either extreme.”
This is the best prognostication I’ve read so far, as we die by the thousands because of COVID-19 and as we see our democracy dismantled by elected leaders. It’s satisfyingly amusing to me to think that we are considered cranky and ornery. And that it may be our salvation.
I finally had to admit I am grateful for my right-wing neighborly crank because she is so worth a chuckle now and then. She thanked me for my annual Christmas gift to her this year by saying, “The only thing I like about you, Colleen, is your pumpkin bread.”
The irony is not that I give the too-loud, opinionated old lady a pumpkin bread every Christmas in hopes that she’ll soften a bit, but that she is so richly back-handed she makes me laugh.
When I lost 13 pounds, she exclaimed how obvious it was. I thanked her, even as I did not trust her. And rightly so: “I had no idea you had so many wrinkles,” she added, with her perpetually concerned look.
A huge bonus in being human is our ability to laugh.
My 87-year-old friend, who has macular degeneration, pulmonary heart disease and familial tremors, is another of my gratifiers – because she and her nine siblings make a practice of being funny via wordplay, of which the family is renowned.
One of the sisters had to go to the hospital and called on her family to walk her dogs while she was away. No close-by sibling answered her plea, the dogs being who they are, so finally, the softest-touch brother flew from four states away to walk her dogs.
He doesn’t particularly like pets and actively dislikes these two “ankle biters,” but he walked them. Then left them alone to visit his other sister, my friend, who lives in the same town as the hospitalized sister but can claim too many disabilities to dog walk.
The savior-brother said to her, “Now that I’ve walked the little B……ds, you can wok them – you know, a little garlic, some onion, red pepper flakes, add a little refried rice….”
Perhaps not amusing to pet lovers, but nonetheless said at a time where everyone in the family needs to laugh because all 10 siblings have at least one deathly disease they could die of any day, and that’s not counting the nearness of the coronavirus.
In the Sunshine State, December weather can be chilly. Despite their state’s famously warm temperatures, most Floridians turn on the heat when the temp falls below 40.
Except for one of the vacationland transplants.
An acquaintance who lives on the island of Boca Grande told me that years ago her “cay” – her island – became infested with large, south-of-the-border iguanas. The small population of people on this barrier island keep the lizard population low by trapping and handing them over to a benign society that relocates exotics – these particular ones back to Mexico where a ship’s captain brought them from in the first place. One can also get rid of them more expeditiously. Because the large lizards are an invasive species, there is no law against killing them; the only law being that it must be accomplished without cruelty.
Because of the cold wave that’s passing over much of the east coast of America, the unwelcome Boca beasts are in danger of succumbing to the near-freezing weather and falling out of their perches in the palms.
This does not hurt the feelings of most Boca Grandeans, but it can be a dismaying image to animal lovers who don’t have to live with the disconcerting species. My island friend has a theory that laughing at the absurdity of temporarily stiffened lizards falling like mangoes is good fun. They do not die from the cold, or from the fall – the temperatures don’t stay low for long in Florida, and iguanas that litter the ground, feet up, soon thaw out and wander away. Although it’s also a good opportunity to grab a few “stiffs” and place them on the grill. They are a delicacy in Central America.
I think it is funny how Carrabelle, FL, brags that they are home to the world’s smallest police station – in an old telephone booth. Is this what is meant by “defund the police”?
And new on my ever-changing gratitude list is that I recently learned Iowa, in the indigenous language of the Ioway people, means “beautiful.”
I have thought this all my life, long before I knew the fact of it. Gratifying piece of business to smile about.
