Lessons that guide us through life can have a humorous result.
“My way of joking is to tell the truth. That’s the funniest joke in the world.” – Muhammad Ali
Throughout life we’re taught lessons to guide us through difficult times we may encounter in the future. Sometimes it’s a sit-down talk with an elder, a mistake that we learn from or something as simple as a well told joke. A couple of the many lessons I learned from my father, in fact, were in the form of jokes, some well told, some poorly told but the lessons were there.
There’s two jokes that I can think of that may be relevant to what I’m about to tell you, one I will share with you but the other never ended so I can’t rightfully relay it. Not that I could anyway, there aren’t enough gigabytes in the computing universe to relay that never ending “joke”. When I was about 11 years old, my father imparted the following old chestnut:
— A man went on a business trip and left behind his elderly mother and his beloved cat. The man asks an old friend to check in on his mother and his cat and let him know if anything goes wrong.
Well, two days into his business trip the man receives a phonecall from his friend. The friend immediately tells the man, “Hey man, your cat is dead.”
The man is devastated, in part, about the way he was informed of the passing of his beloved cat. He tells his friend, “Oh geeze, why’d you have to tell me like that? Couldn’t you have broken the news a little better!?”
The friend asked how he could have handled it better and the man says a bit flustered, “I..I don’t know, maybe say, ‘Hey man, it seems your cat has made his way onto the roof and he won’t come down’ at least then I’d get the idea something was wrong but I’d still have hope. Then maybe the next day you could call and say, ‘We put some food on the roof for your cat but, he’s refusing to eat and he still won’t come down’ and I’d know that things were getting worse but I’d still have some hope. Then maybe on the third day you could say that you noticed the cat had a bad cough, was still refusing to eat and still wouldn’t come down’ and I’d realize things are really bad and there’s little hope but I could steal myself for the worst and by the time you told me he was dead I probably would have realized that myself and would have already come to terms with it.”
The man then asked the friend how his mother was taking the news about the cat. After some careful consideration the friend replied, “It seems your mother has made her way onto the roof and she won’t come down.” —
This was a life lesson about dealing with the painful situation of notifying someone that something they cared for is gone and that no matter how you choose to do it, it will never be the right way. Lesson learned….?
Decades later my wife and our daughter conspired to get my daughter a pet rodent of some kind. “Absolutely Not!” I said. So, that afternoon, my wife and daughter brought home a hamster that my daughter named Bob; Bobby for short.
Bobby was a Siberian Hamster. Being winter and frigid outside, presumably the perfect weather for anything that comes with the title, ‘Siberian’… Wait, did I say “was”? Well, that kinda spoils the ending but, this, as they say, is more about the journey than the destination.
Shortly after adopting Bobby, my daughter left for my parents house to spend winter break. She gave us strict instructions to take good care of Bobby and make sure nothing happened to him. “Pfffft! It’s a hamster sweetie, we raised two kids, how hard can it be?” Wellllll, two whole days in our care my wife,Cindy, walks into my daughter’s room and calls to me, “I think Bobby’s dead!”
I responded with some urgency and curiosity at how the hell this could be possible. I guess I know how it COULD be possible but, so soon!? There lies Bobby, face down next to his exercise wheel. Being a trained investigator I offered that perhaps he hit his head on the exercise wheel while running with some gusto and succumbed to a closed head injury… any explanation that gets us off the hook, I could sell it to a 14 year old.
I reached into the cage and lifted Bobby by his scruff. His little arms and legs dangling. I poked and palpated little Bobby. “Ummm, I don’t think he’s dead. He doesn’t feel dead and he’s rather limber.”, I said. With my index and middle fingers I placed one under each of his dangling hands and began pumping his arms up and down singing, “🎶Jump up, jump up, jump around, hey-ho🎶.” The humor apparently lost on Cindy, (and probably everyone else reading this). I know this because she told me it wasn’t funny. “I was checking his flexibility”, I said, laughing, in my defense. “It is rather cold in here, maybe he’s hypothermic”, my wife pondered out loud.”
“He’s a SIBERIAN hamster, they don’t get hypothermia!”, I said with a great deal of authority on the subject I knew nothing about. “Well, let’s take him downstairs and warm him up.”, I added covering my butt.
Downstairs there was a nice warm fire burning in the wood burning stove. I made a nest from a dishtowel and lay Bobby in the center. We sat by the fire while I rubbed his back and blew hot breath on him. After several minutes I noticed his right eyelid was sagging open about halfway, his lips on the left side were drooping. Hmmm, things may be looking up for him.
“Cindy, ask the Google what’s wrong with Bobby”, I requested. After some research, the Google indicated that Siberian hamsters are prone to slipping into hibernation if they get too cold, a dangerous condition for them, and should be warmed up immediately or they could die. Well shit! Why would you name a thing Siberian if it can’t handle a little cold? It had been 20 minutes and what I was doing didn’t seem to be working all that well so I went to the kitchen and got the cast-iron skillet.
“No you’re not!”, Cindy exclaimed. “It’ll be okay, I promise I’ll watch him carefully.”, I said. So there’s Bobby simmering on the wood burning stove. Cindy continued doing research while I read my book taking deep inhalations through my nose to ensure Bobby wasn’t on fire or anything. Cindy informed me, “Uhhh, this says that you’re not supposed to warm them up too quickly.” Well shit again! Now realizing there might be a distinction between immediately and quickly, I picked Bobby up by the scruff. Cindy asked what he looked like, I said, “Well he looks a whole lot more like he does now than he did before I put him in the skillet.” Cindy befittingly asked for some clarification so I clarified it with, “Before he looked like he was coming out of what ever he was in but now he looks like he’s going someplace he’s never been.”
I asked what happens if you warm them too quickly. “They can go into cardiac arrest”, she informed. “Okay, I think we’re well into that stage, what does it say to do next?”, I asked earnestly. Cindy informed me that the next step was to put Bobby in a zip lock baggy and throw him into the freezer. Oh no! Not on my watch!
I sat on the sofa, Bobby lying supine on my finger tips, my thumbs on his upper chest… I think. Cindy aptly asked what the hell I was doing. “CPR! What’s it look like?”, I exclaimed! She informed me that you can’t do CPR on a hamster. “Said everyone who never tried”, I responded with some authority on the subject I knew nothing about, (clearly a habit of mine).
For those of you that are older, you may remember the flat wooden pull-string toys that you pull the string on the bottom and the arms and legs hinged at the shoulders and hips move up and down like overly nimble jumping jackers well, there was little Bobby, excitedly making invisible snow angels with every chest compression, arms and legs waiving out from his sides. I leaned in and put my mouth over his nose and mouth and gave a puff.
“I can’t believe you’re doing that!”, Cindy chided.
“I know, one-man CPR is very difficult, it sure would help if you took over rescue breathing while I continue with compressions.”, I begged.
By the look on her face it was apparent I was going to remain a one-man band on the wind/percussion instrument formally known as Bobby. After 41 minutes of vigorous and admittedly futile CPR, Cindy called it, time of death 11:24 A.M. I went to the kitchen and slipped Bobby into his clear plastic quart sized body bag with double locks to keep out freezer burn. With a unceremonious toss into the freezer I felt relief that it was over, for Bobby anyway.
I returned to the living room and sat down. Cindy and I just stared at each other both pondering in our heads which one of us would be making notification to the next of kin, affectionately known as our daughter. I volunteered, and immediately thought of the joke my father told me, the one with an ending…….like Bobby. Dialing my parents’ phone number, a myriad of well intended scenarios floated through my mind that might have softened the blow of the unfortunate news of Bobby’s untimely demise. ‘Hey sweetie, Bobby’s on the roof and he won’t come down’, just sounded like really bad parenting so I ended up telling her the absolute truth as laid out above.
Now, as I said before, there may not be a “right way” to give someone the bad news but, there certainly is a wrong way and I seemed to have chosen it.
