Theatre

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The What? Factor

Did you know:

Copied from a Facebook post. And, oh my. Good grief—what?

I’ve been around a few years and let me tell you—I was totally unaware of this. I also wonder why teachers (even in grade school) don’t tell students such things. Imagine. It could have made percentages interesting! I would have been joyous to know this. It would have given me the thrill of being a secret agent. A holder of secret knowledge. But then I would have told anyone who would listen. Of course I had to check this out by multiplying a few numbers. And then it was obvious.

What? number two: I ate breakfast at a restaurant this morning before going to the grocery store. I love restaurant eating. Not only because I don’t have to cook, but for the theatre of it. I’m sure that I must have discussed this previously. I must have as I so enjoy the sense of almost being a voyeur—and in public. Usually I hold a mental discourse to include myself in the drama I am witnessing. Not today’s fare. Today I watched a woman sitting alone in a booth. For the longest while nothing out of the ordinary happened and I couldn’t see anything of note occurring around us. I turned back to my book, [Run, A Novel by Ann Patchett] an after-dining habit I indulge while drinking my coffee. I glanced over the book just to check in with my subject while expecting nothing, and was met with a surprise.

She was sitting there rolling up remnants of the paper products—napkins, the sheath from a straw, the wrap from the eating service, and so on. Then she tossed them over the table to the other side and floor of the booth. Let me complete the picture by telling you she was an old woman with completely white hair and a blue sweater wrapped around her shoulders to keep her warm from the cold of the air conditioning. The kind of woman whose mother would have slapped her hands at such behavior. The kind of woman who never would have allowed her children to do such a thing.

I started to laugh but stopped the moment I began to think of reasons. Could she be drunk? I thought not. Was she angry with the service? No, she had chatted easily with the waitress earlier. She might even have been a regular customer.

What then? The words we dread to use as we get older or have older loved ones. The words that float in and we push them away. Alzheimers. Dementia. But no, I thought. I couldn’t end with that. Good theatre wouldn’t end with that.

What the hell. Maybe she was just having fun.

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Paraprosdokians—Wow

Winston Churchill loved paraprosdokians, figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected.

  1. Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.
  2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it’s still on my list.
  3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
  4. If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.
  5. War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
  6. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting
    it in a fruit salad.
  7. They begin the evening news with ‘Good Evening,’ then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.
  8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
  9. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out, I just wanted pay checks.
  10. In filling out an application, where it says, ‘In case of emergency, notify:’ I put “DOCTOR.”
  11. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
  12. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street…with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.
  13. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.
  14. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.
  15. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.
  16. Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.
  17. There’s a fine line between cuddling and…holding someone down so they can’t get away.
  18. I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure.
  19. You’re never too old to learn something stupid.
  20. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
  21. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
  22. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
  23. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
  24. I’m supposed to respect my elders, but now it’s getting harder and harder for me to find one.

Wow. That’s a new word for a fun literary turn. These are usually found in something witty from a play, a true Theatre Play, as in Noel Coward. Or Oscar Wilde, or in the earlier centuries, such as the 17th and 18th. *Sigh* It used to be an experience going to the theatre, yes? In any case, these excursions into wit are rarely found these days, at the least not in conversation.

Which by-the-way reminds me, whatever happened to Salons? Didn’t I harp on that sometime in the past?