My friend Sharon McDonald used to delight in telling of a former pastor of Maynardville Baptist Church who was scandalized by the increasing trend for people to wear less clothing on television and in public. He would occasionally exclaim from the pulpit, “Oh, the nu-did-i-ty of it!”
Another element of our society that many times goes unappreciated is irony. Irony is defined by Webster’s New World Dictionary as “a way of being amusing or sarcastic by saying exactly the opposite of what one means” or “an event or a result that is the opposite of what might be expected.”
Irony in literature is often exemplified in the unexpected, surprise endings in short stories.
When I was younger, irony, as a lot of other things, seemed such a fresh little spice of life. As I’ve matured (sounds better than “aged,” right?), it seems harder for me to notice and appreciate the irony in lots of situations.
Remember the insecurities of being young and embarking into the world of dating? Oh, the pain of rejection! This occurs with the elderly, also. Late comedian Phyllis Diller said that Burt Reynolds once asked her out, not for a date, but to get out of his room. Some things we never outgrow.
As the due date for filing income tax approaches, note that when you put “THE” and “IRS” together, it spells “THEIRS”!
The other day I was reading Mark Twain’s “Notes of an Idle Excursion.” Twain related that in olden times many ships did not have a doctor on board; however, they did have a medical kit that had a series of numbered medicines. A list of symptoms for ailments was provided, along with the number and dosage of the recommended medicine in the kit for treatment.
“There’s something rotten about this medicine-chest experience. One of my men was sick—nothing much the matter. I looked in the book: it said give him a teaspoonful of No. 15. I judged I’d got to get up a combination somehow that would fill the bill; so I hove into the fellow half a teaspoonful of No. 8 and half a teaspoonful of No. 7, and I’ll be hanged if it didn’t kill him in fifteen minutes! There’s something about this medicine-chest system that’s too many for me!” (Tom Sawyer Detective and Other Stories)
Irony adds spice to works of literature, but it is also prevalent in everyday life. Consider camera surveillance. It is wisest to assume that our movements are being recorded everywhere we go (never forget Animal Farm, “Big Brother” is watching).
However, ponder the irony that theme parks can snap a crystal-clear picture of you on a roller coaster going 70 miles per hour (videos of this can be seen often on Facebook), but bank cameras can’t get a clear shot of a robber standing still. Facial recognition software can pick a person out of a crowd, but the vending machine at work can't recognize a dollar bill with a bent corner.
Wouldn’t Mickey Mouse be amazed that Walt Disney was afraid of mice? Probably no more so than the bald man who wins a comb in a raffle.
When I was growing up, my dad forced me to go to bed every night at nine o’clock, even if it was not yet dark on those longest days of summer. The house was silent, except for the hum of the fan on hot summer nights.
I swore an oath to myself, “Old man, if I ever get out from under you, I’ll never go to bed before eleven.” This is a resolution I’ve kept, even if I sleep three hours in my recliner before going to bed!
As a matter of fact, I don’t even go to bed anymore. I sleep better in my recliner with the TV blaring than I do in bed. (It's called “pre-sleep.”) It keeps me awake the rest of the night to rise from that recliner and get ready for bed.
Even in the absence of my father’s regulations, I often get eight hours of sleep, though it sometimes takes me three days. Without television, for me there is no sleep. Ironically, and perhaps Dad would get a kick out of this, age 60 might be the new 40, but 9 p.m. has become the new midnight.
If you are reading this, you have successfully made it through the first month of 2024. The new is once again oh-so-quickly becoming the old. Commit yourself, Dear Reader, to live happy in this year and every year! Take joy in the ironies as you consider that as you “mature:”
Your kids are becoming you.
Going out is good. Coming home is better!
You forget names. It's OK, because other people forgot they even knew you!!!
You realize you’re never going to be really good at anything.
The things you used to care to do, you no longer care to do, but you really do care that you don't care to do them anymore.
You miss the days when everything worked with just an “on” and and “off” switch.
Now that you can afford expensive jewelry, it’s not safe to wear it anywhere.
When I was growing up, I didn’t have a huge wardrobe. Now, I have three sizes of clothes in my closet, two of which no longer fit!
You notice everything they sell in stores is “sleeveless”? That wouldn’t be much of a problem, except for the Rev. Ben H. Knisley, except for the fact that what used to be freckles are now liver spots.
As a final salute to irony, did you ever notice that we were told to put off using the clothes dryer during the recent winter storm and are told to lower our usage of air conditioning on hot days to prevent overwhelming the electric grid? Yet, we are simultaneously being told to trade in our gas cars for electric vehicles? Don’t forget to keep a container in your electric car so you can walk down the road for a can of electricity if you run out on a rural backwoods holler road!
Answer to Question of the Week #1:
What do you call a cook who leaves Arby's to work at McDonald's? (An ARBY-TRAITOR)
Question of the Week #2
What is the act of setting fire to a mortgage? (See next week’s article for the answer.)