The Pun Also Rises(as seen in the North Adams Transcript)
"Ungrounded Accusations"My parents called last week and asked me what I was doing. I told them it was just the usual, that my ninja pirate zombie robot was helping me defeat the evil denizens of the spooky manor. For some reason, they weren't impressed, and accused me of wasting time with things that aren't real. First of all, I'm not sure what counts as real. Isn't everything in the world necessarily real? You might argue that movies aren't real, but they are reel close. Sometimes it's hard to tell. Fishing is obviously reel as well, which may or may not mean that sports are real. My father plays a lot of tennis, but sadly, I had to inform him that the real world isn't flat and bisected with a net. (Don't worry, I told him with Love.) What's more, the real world doesn't usually consist of people hitting spheroids towards you at fifty miles an hour. (This is a relief.) Besides, what's the big appeal of making every second "real"? Everyone says it's important to stay grounded in reality. But I don't want to stay grounded in reality; that sounds like a punishment to me. "You're grounded, and you can't leave reality until you clean your room." Aren't I old enough that I shouldn't have to be grounded anymore? (I'm certainly old enough that I don't clean my room any more, as anyone who has seen my hosue can tell you,) Once you grow up, you're supposed to be past that stage. The whole point of growing up is that you stop being punished and you get to start punishing others. That's why people have kids. Oh, sure, that's not why they *say* they have kids, but we know better. Life is not very controllable. We can't control when we get sick, we can't control the weather, we can't control traffic. (Heck, some people around here barely seem able to control their cars.) We can't even control other people's interactions with us in daily life, aside from guessing what they want to hear and hoping they might do what we want. And then there are kids. Once you have kids, you can regain full control. If you read the previous sentence without laughing, you probably don't have children. Of course you can't gain full control, but you can darned well show them that you have more power than they do. "Stop hitting your sister, you're grounded, son." Exerting power over others and grounding them is the whole purpose of existence. Some people don't have kids of their own, but they become teachers and do the same thing. Detention is just a way of being grounded at school. If you become a police officer, you can put people in jail, which is just another way of saying "You're grounded." Sometimes you don't even have to exert power over people; you can do it over animals. Many people have pets that they punish for misbehaving. Alternatively, you can punish animals on a farm: "Mr. Cow, your suggestive mooing is highly inappropriate. You're grounded, beef." You don't even need animals, you can punish inanimate objects. "That electical outlet gave me a shock! That's it, outlet, you're grounded." Such methods usually fix the problem, if you can manage to exert power over power. Even inanimate objects must be punished for misbehaving. Heck, airplanes must misbehave all the time. I can't even begin to count how many airplanes I've seen grounded. Though the worst part of that is that the passengers end up being punished when the airplane was the one to misbehave. It's like when your little brother couldn't go to the movie, so you had to stay home and watch him. You hadn't done anything wrong, but his punishment meant that you suffered. "This airplane is grounded." Alas, even when you grow up, you still can't control most things. And that's what real life is all about. ___________________________________ All work on this page is copyright Seth Brown. If you are sharing it, please give attribution. If you want to reprint it, please contact me first. |