Father and Son
Turning Why Questions into Humor
You’re never too old for a joke. 55 or 9, you need a good laugh. It takes you out of the seriousness of life. Life is all too serious too often, without even trying. The other day I wrote about trouble conversing with my son, but you should also know, we have good talks, too. We have more good talks than not. I do have trouble keeping up with the make and models of trucks and cars, and all the stats, like torque ratios and zero to sixty… But if you want a good laugh, I sometimes get lucky, even for dad with jokes.
Perhaps what I share with you is narrative therapy. Hopefully you will find a laugh. I will also go big, for the adults in the room, because the best kids stuff appeals to the kid in the adult. It reminds of who we were, which is always who we still are.
Narratives are important. Humor is important. Subtle humor is the best. Sideways humor is clever. Why do you love your spouse? Because of the story you tell. Why do you hate someone? Because of the story you tell. Why do you have anything good or bad, anxiety, or mental anguish? Because of the story you tell.
So, here is this story.
Son and I speak nightly. The last couple of nights were good calls. I found yesterday’s call particularly interesting. Son does not like to give direct answers easily. Like, no directly asking how school was. He just won’t answer. It’s minimal, “okay.” To get at this, you have to go sideways. Did the teacher make you laugh today? “Actually…”
I asked, “Did you get the letter I sent?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t check the mail.”
How do you not check the mail? I’d be checking it everyday. I love snail mail. I love weird stamps. I loved getting mail from my dad with stationary from the USS Enterprise. Yes, that was his last tour of duty. I still have a letter from the USS Saratoga.
Letters were the light through the storms.
My son has a dog named Banner. “Didn’t Banner alert you to the fact the mailman came?”
“Yeah. Why do dogs bark at the mailman.” That was his question. It’s a real question. It’s a fair question. I would never say, ‘that’s a dumb question.’ Or what kind of question is that. I do think he gets that over there in California land. “Use your brain stem” was not a phrase I gave him.
Well, this thing with dogs and mailmen goes way back. To like the founding of Rome, the first time there was historically verifiable, regular mail service. There was this postman who wasn’t paying attention as he entered someone’s yard. He tripped on their dog. That man’s name was Brutus. The dog was seriously hurt. He redressed his injury to the moon and all the dogs that saw the moon that night wept. To this day, all dogs whine to the moon and bark at postmen.
My son asked, “Really?”
I asked, “seriously?”
We both laughed. “That was funny, wasn’t it,” I asked.
“Yeah,” he admitted.
“How many dogs do you suppose are named Banner?”
“I don’t know. A million?”
“Wouldn’t it be funny if you say, ‘Banner, come here, boy,’ and a million dogs show up on your lawn, all wagging their tails?”
The story is the thing.
This is the adult part. Telling a story isn’t necessarily a lie, but we do lie to ourselves all the time. ‘Everybody lies’ is not just the best tagline of a show ever, Doctor House. Victims and survivors are born in the same event. Their accounts can be true, verifiably accurate, and they can be wrong. A story can be a lie, not a truth to it, and it is absolutely necessary.
So, all news as you see it on the TV or in the paper is a lie. It can be both accurate and inaccurate and still a bold face lie. Was Obi Wan telling a lie when he said Luke’s father was dead? Maybe. Maybe Jedi should be more transparent. But then again, if mystery schools were that obvious, there’d be no mystery.
So, imagine for a moment someone told you things are getting bad. You’re in mine and there is only one media. The canary. Mind you, there is really only one news story. It’s owned by what, four companies, and you can bet your ass that those 4 is owned by one man. In the game of Monopoly, there can be only one! The man that owns the canary owns the world.
Until the canary dies. Now, there are people in this mine that know what this means. “There is not enough air to breathe. Help me kill everyone so you and I can live.”
Okay, that is the devil on your left shoulder. What he is telling you is not wrong. The canary being dead could mean there is gas in this mine and you’re about to die. It could also mean someone forgot to feed the canary. Or someone got tired of him ratting folks out and he was poisoned. I don’t know.
But there is this other guy, on your right shoulder. Let’s call him Plato.
“You could just leave the cave.”
So, in this world, there are stories for sure. What kind of story are you telling? Or should I ask, retelling?
