REPOST FROM JULY 28, 2005
The Dwarf-Baby with Flippers vs. Christmas Ornaments Classification System
OK...All you imaginary Kiki and the Lou readers, hold onto your seats. I am about to go kooky-crazy on you! This is an idea I developed quite a few years ago. It's a doozy. See if you can follow.
Once, about three years ago, we met some people. All in the space of one week, we met two groups of new friends. One couple had been friends of my husband's for years, since childhood. They were a very offbeat and funny couple. They had me rolling on the floor with their skewed perceptions of the world. The wife was pregnant at the time and kept telling me she was convinced she was carrying a dwarf baby with flippers. She was neurotic and animated. Passionate and witty. Downright fun!
A few days later, my husband started playing guitar with a band. We went up to, what would henceforth be called Band Camp, on a Tuesday night. The wives of the band members would congregate on the front porch. We had wine and smokes and chatted the chit chat of new friends. We talked about our lives as wives and covered such mundane topics as what we all did for living, what was our favorite food, when were our birthdays...you get the picture.
At one point, the conversation took a turn for the worse. I was stuck listening to a description of every Christmas ornament one of the wives had bought for the other over the years. "Remember, that was the year I bought you the lighthouse one...wait, no, was it the barn that year?" "Oh, that sailboat was so cute. It had a tiny white sail!" A full half an hour of description of ornaments.
A few days later, I was struck by a funny thought. If there were to be a continuum of personalities from the mundane to the offbeat, we had just experienced both ends of that spectrum in one week. We went from one end of the range, Dwarf Baby with Flippers, to the other, Christmas Ornaments. Each was pushed further to its end of the scale by its proximity to the other.
So now, it is part of our family lexicon. If you say someone is Dwarf Baby or Christmas Ornaments, we all nod in agreement. We have had hours of fun sorting all the people we know using this system. We have come to one other conclusion. Dwarf Babies completely understand this system. Sadly, Christmas Ornaments do not. So, if you explain this to someone and they get it, they are a Dwarf Baby. If not, they are an Ornament. So, do you get it?
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