In the course of life one hears and sees lots of screwball things. An example: Recently a small neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland became the site for the first annual Toilet Race, probably designed after the race in England pictured above. Racers could design and ride on anything as long as it included a “human defecation device.” Although if I had seen it I probably would have laughed along with everyone else, to me its creation is about on par with the same junior high school mentality of young men who think farting is the height of hilarity.
Another example: The whole Pasadena DO-DAH parade which started out hysterically funny has degenerated now into an event that I wouldn’t take my grandkids to.
However, there are other things that I have found funny that weren’t associated with sex or bodily functions.
One is the use of Preparation H on the bags under your eyes. No one likes either of those physical conditions. I don’t know what is in Preparation H that supposedly causes the shrinkage, but to me the risk of possibly shrinking my eyeballs by accident is enough to make me reject it as a bag remover. Using it only where it belongs is my suggestion!
I’ve recently read that the best antidote for dry skin is to peel and mash an avocado and smear it over your entire body. Then one is to sit quietly until it dries and then shower it off. The skin is supposed to turn out moist and plump, although I’m not sure how happy women would be over the “plump” aspect. Now was this a tongue in cheek suggestion? Considering where I read it, no. But actually, for most of us it would require more than one avocado, and at the price of avocados and the difficulty in finding ripe ones when needed, I think it’s not a very smart beauty trick. I’m thinking that guacamole would be a much better use for any ripe avocados you can find. 
Now these beauty secrets and silly events are not new. When I was young and we used to set our hair every night in big rollers, it was necessary to put something around our head to make sure that tossing and turning in our sleep didn’t cause the rollers to come unwrapped. Someone came up with the bright idea of placing a pair of nylon (or silk) underpants over the rollers. One pair was just about the right size to cover the entire head-full of rollers. And because of their silkiness one’s head turned much more easily on the pillows. There was, of course, some concern about how romantic we would appear to our husbands as we readied ourselves for bed with underpanties on our head, but for the most part we chose practicality over seductiveness – which may have been one reason why so many of us ended up divorced.
But that reminds me of another story about my first husband, who LOVED to put things on his head. One evening we had company and had been talking about the Don Quixote stage play we’d seen. Joe disappeared and shortly reappeared from the kitchen, marching into the living room holding a broom and with an orange Tupperware colander upside down on his head. This was Joe’s idea of funny. It was, but oh, so juvenile.
Often it didn’t take any reason for him to surprise me with his latest idea in headgear. The funniest was the time he twirled out into the living room with my Merry Widow affixed like a stovepipe on top of his head. The four garter straps were hanging down like seats on a rotating ride at a county fair. The padded bra cups were poised over his eyes like a lizard’s eyelids. In case you don’t know exactly what a “Merry Widow” was, it was a full-body corset, guaranteed to give you a great bosom and a wasp waist. Every young woman had one (this was in the 1950s and ‘60s) but I’m quite sure my husband was the only one who found this alternate use for it. Luckily that night we did NOT have company. It was a screwball thing to do, but things like this were part of his charm.
When it gets down to it, crazy things, whether we just read about them or participate in them, are part and parcel of balancing the “want to dos” and “must dos” of life. Still, there are things like a toilet parade (and a Merry Widow) that I just have to shake my head at!
2 comments:
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, I guess.
We once watched some sci-fi movie in which one of the characters made him/herself a tin-foil hat. I had to have one, and my wife and kids laughed till they cried. It had a 3' spike - I'm all for improved reception.
Shortly thereafter, I wore it to a Brass Quintet rehearsal at a local music store. When I walked in the door, my buddies Tom and Gary were talking. They laughed and shook their heads.
In walked a mom with a teenage daughter to pick up yet another daughter. The girl said to me, "I want to have your babies!" and ran up and hugged me. The mom looked shocked, as was to be expected, I suppose.
My buddy Tom, a decade older than me, fancies himself as something of a babe magnet. His look was one of pure jealousy.
I agree Grandma....avacados should be for guacamole, they are really hard to come by at a decent price and being luck enough to find on ripe is almost impossible.
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