Topic 15: Humorous Blunders

Carol:

Shoes, --and Ships and--Blunderbusses

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
From Lewis Caroll’s 1872 “The Walrus and the Carpenter” (http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html)

Whenever I send an e-mail to family or friends that is just a bunch of rambling, disconnected thoughts, I put in the subject line: “re: Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax.” I have never actually called their attention to it, but I figure it is almost a caveat emptor that I have much to say about nothing, and nothing much to say.

At first, I thought the topic of “Humorous Blunders” would be easy. I have a book’s worth of anecdotes that illustrate my keen ability to fall on my face or put my foot in my mouth or step on somebody’s toes. But, most of them are better spoken than written so that I can at least use my facial expressions and arm gestures to punctuate the story of “My Most Embarrassing Moment.” But the topic “Humorous Blunders” is another one of those oxymorons we are getting used to with these topics from 1927. SHOES.

Blunders are serious in their consequences. When I fell on the rope tow in Banff as a novice skier and knocked down the next 20 people on the rope, it was an embarrassing moment but it didn’t constitute a blunder. When I was giving an orientation to a group of new faculty and suddenly realized that my shirt was not only on backwards but inside out, that was a humiliating moment but it wasn’t a blunder. When I walked into the Men’s Room at the British Library, well that might have been a blunder if the urinals were in use and someone had gotten injured trying to cover his privates, but luckily the room was empty. Most dictionaries would say that a blunder is a “stupid and grave mistake” (Concise Heritage Dictionary). By definition, then, a blunder can’t be humorous. SHIPS.

The word “blunder” brings to mind another word having the same derivation, “blunderbuss.” A blunderbuss is a gun with a large mouth almost like a trumpet, and most people have probably seen it associated with the pilgrims chasing down turkeys on Saturday cartoons. In fact, in Cartoonland, when the hunter shoots a blunderbuss, it is more likely to take down the pilgrim not the turkey. Over time, the term “blunderbuss” has come to mean, not just a weapon, but the one who uses the weapon, i.e. a stupid, bungler. It shouldn’t be a surprise that I enjoy learning about words and hearing unusual words. Blunderbuss is one of those strong, emphatic words that “shoots” right out of your mouth, like poopsnagle or clodpate or balderdash or jabberwocky. SEALING WAX.

Megan:

A Humerus Blunder
(this is my attempt to be like my mom and not only title my essay, but also use a pun)

March 31, 1994 was a Thursday (thanks Internet!) and also spring break. I was alone in the house talking to my best-friend Noel on the phone. My brother was walking the dogs. My parents were in China. My uncle Doug, who was supposed to be supervising us, had taken my grandmother to get her car re-upholstered because the ceiling fabric was falling down. It’s funny the way details stick with you, how they burn into your mind after a traumatic event.

I was 12, so the first thing I would do when I got home from school was call Noel. Noel and I went to school together, we sat next to each other in class and we passed notes to each other all day long. Some how we still found it necessary to speak to each other on the phone for 3 or 4 hours every day after school. On the weekends and holidays, if we weren’t having a sleepover, the phone calls would extend to 12 -36 hours a day.

We didn’t have cell phones back then. Or cordless phones (or even push-button phones). So, I had to sit at the kitchen counter, twisting the cord with my fingers and tipping back on the stool, while kicking the wall with my tennis shoe. That was the only comfortable way to spend hundreds of hours on the phone.

I had been warned against tipping back on the stool. My mother always told me I would break something (myself, or even worse, the stool), but on that day, my mother wasn’t around to protect me from myself because she was in China trying to ignore my father as he urinated off the Great Wall. And Uncle Doug (who has a history of neglecting me) was off with my grandmother doing non-essential, purely cosmetic, and utterly pointless car maintenance.

The first time I fell off the stool, I dropped the phone too. I picked myself up off the ground, and laughing, told Noel I’d fallen. The second time, I took the phone with me and Noel got my scream right in the ear. "Did it again," I said. "Isn’t it funny how I don’t learn from my mistakes?"

The third time something broke. The pain was instantaneous, but I had the presence of mind to hang up with Noel (“Gotta go”) before I threw up.

I went out on the deck, my arm hanging uselessly and painfully at my side and scoured the neighborhood for my brother. I screamed and yelled and got his attention and he came running home with the dogs. He was only 10, so I don’t know what I thought he was going to do for me, but he suggested calling 911. Instead, I called Noel back, because her mom used to be a nurse. Noel’s mom arrived about the same time as my uncle. Since he was supposed to be the one in charge, he took me to the hospital in grandma’s nicely re-upholstered car. I leaned back in the seat and stared at the ceiling and thought, “Huh. They did a good job, that looks really nice.”

We had to wait forever at the hospital because some lady got hit by a car and shattered her pelvis. We could hear her screaming. I remember thinking, “Why didn’t she look where she was going? That accident was totally preventable.”

Finally, I got x-rays and the doctor gave me a splint instead of a cast, because I was a girl and girls don’t fall down as much as boys. That is actually what he said.

The next day my parents came home and thought that my broken arm was an April Fool’s Joke and we had to show my dad the hospital bill before he believed it. I was looking forward to getting back to school the next week to show off the injury, but was dismayed to discover that my arch-enemy Taylor, who had the same birthday as me and was always stealing my thunder had once again upstaged me by breaking his own arm! And he had a cast! God, I hated him.