Real Life

There’s an old phrase: “Life imitates art.”  It can be interpreted various ways, but it is odd how sometimes things happen that seem unreal and fictional – or even fanciful.

I remember a Memorial Day weekend when we lived in Duluth.  We were planting our little garden when I noticed it was snowing.  I realized I was planting snow peas at the time.  Not an earthshaking coincidence, but still…

More recently, and far less happily, it was reported that an angry camel bit off a man’s head.  So for all those times when somebody who was being criticized said, “Don’t bite my head off,” we now know if can happen.

Back when we used to cut and bale our own hay, the expression “make hay while the sun shines” took on a literal meaning as storm clouds rolled in when we had another load to finish.  Making hay has other meetings, as does hitting the hay, or a roll in the hay.  None are enhanced by rain, though.

The expression “nothing is sure except for death and taxes” took on new meaning at the VFW fish fry in Stoughton last weekend when we noticed that the placemat had a mortuary and a tax preparation service listed.  For some reason that reminds me of the Archie’s Monuments location that used to be on Highway 26 north of Watertown which also featured miniature golf.  A very interesting combination business.  Watch out for the last hole!

Another tragic example of late: the man who attempted suicide by stripping naked and breaking in to the lions’ area at a zoo.  Throwing someone to the lions is supposed to be a metaphor.  It’s hard to imagine even the most jaded movie script including suicide by lion.

Life has imitated science fiction for many years, from rocket travel to artificial intelligence.  In fact George Orwell’s “1984” and Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” were, I guess, social-science fiction books that speak to thought control (Facebook?) and constant monitoring by the government (cameras everywhere in cities, cell phones being monitored…) 

Life imitates art in good ways too, of course.  It doesn’t often make the news, however. 

I don’t want to make too big a deal out of all this.  Rumor has it that there is a mole hill somewhere that might be made into a mountain, if we’re not careful.

               

A Slice of Life

People do some pretty peculiar things, and being angry or intoxicated only seems to make us more peculiar.  One example of this sort of odd behavior – or, two examples – involve recent rash of pizza assaults in South Carolina.  The first fellow threw pizza at his girlfriend in anger after slipping on a wet floor.  He was arrested on charges of “assault on a female.”   I was thinking a better charge would be “assault with a delicious weapon.”

The second pizza thrower claimed that “she started it,” which is consistent with the maturity level one would need to throw food at someone in anger.  Police noted that she had sauce on her face and clothing, but that he did not.  So, unless she is a very poor pizza thrower, he was correctly arrested for his pizza attack. 

So far there have been no organized efforts to register pizza, or require background checks.

I once lived next door to a young couple who were as nice as nice could be.  One day, while she was employed and he was temporarily out of work, he was doing the dishes and she commented that one he had set on the rack to dry wasn’t completely clean.  He had a glass in his hands with water in it, and he tossed the water on her.

She was shocked, and I think he probably was too.  In retrospect, she did have a knack for “helping” with many things that he did, and though she was always very pleasant about it, perhaps the dirty cup comment was the last straw.  He was not charged with assault.

It seems common in TV shows and movies for people to throw drinks in the faces of spouses or other romantic interests after learning of an infidelity or some other infraction.  I’m not sure what that accomplishes.  Personally, I’d rather go for the pie-in-the-face approach.

TV and movies from the past also show people in audiences throwing tomatoes at performers they don’t care for.  I don’t know if that ever really happened.  After all, how many times have you been at a performance and happened to have ripe vegetables in your pocket?

I guess throwing food and beverages in anger, while peculiar, is a lot better than shooting, stabbing, or blowing someone up.  The worst consequence of a food assault is likely to be a dry cleaning bill.  That, and feeling really dumb after the fact.

I haven’t thrown pizza at anyone so far in my life, but I have, I hope, some years left, so perhaps the situation will present itself.  To be honest, though, I’d be more likely to throw something I don’t care for.  So, if you hear about a man throwing Brussels sprouts at someone, there’s a chance it will have been me.