COLUMN: Just a couple of ‘what ifs’
Most of us are just a couple of “what ifs?” from going movie-of-the week raving mad. Sanity is fragile. Just one misguided step on the unshovelled icy sidewalk of reality could send you headlong into the abyss of self-help books and prescription drugs.
I had such a day the other day while reading USA Today.
What if it was actually me who shot JFK and they (The CIA) brainwashed me, and there has been a big conspiracy cover-up that even included the department of Homeland Security.
What if Elvis is living at the bottom of the ocean in Atlantis with the Loch Ness Monster? I know that sounds crazy because everyone knows that Nessie is a fresh water monster and could not live in the ocean, but paranoia has no respect for aquatic biology.
What if the St. Louis public library catches up with me for that book I checked out and lost and never returned in the third grade? What if now the overdue costs have added up to $12 million, and the book is now out of print so I can’t replace it, and I have to go to the same prison as the Shoe Bomber guy and we end up being cell mates and he says “Hey, I want to meet your sister?” But I don’t have a sister, so he gets real mad and starts punching me around and the blows to my head bring back my memory and I realize that it really was me that shot JFK, but it was an accident?
And what if somehow Oliver Stone finds out, because he knows everything about the ’60s, and now he wants to make a movie and tell the whole world that I did it? And what if I try to defend myself by telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but the prosecutor is Johnnie Cochran, but I try anyway?
“You see, judge, me and Elvis were giving Bigfoot a ride home in the flying saucer and I just accidentally hit the death ray button when we were flying over Dallas at near the speed of light.”
And what if now it turns out that Elvis really is living with the Loch Ness Monster at the bottom of the loch and he doesn’t have a phone so I can’t get him to testify that I’m innocent?
What if then the judge says my story sounds as plausible as anything Johnnie Cochran has said, and he asks me if I’ve ever been out drinking and picking up babes with any of the Kennedys? I say “Yeah, but who hasn’t?” and the judge doesn’t think this is funny.
What if I’m now so confused I’m forced to call the psychic Jamaican woman at 1-900-You-Fool and I say, “If you can guess my credit card number, I’ll pay.” But she has no sense of humor either and hangs up on me. So, I’m at the end of my rope and I say to myself “end of my rope?” hmmm, this is symbolic. So I call Psychic LaVerl at 1-900-OMY- Heck (it’s an in-state number so I can afford it). In only two tries she correctly guesses how many hands I’m holding up in front of the phone so I decide to take her advice.
She says “end of your rope” can mean that I subconsciously want to either hang myself or go bungee jumping. What if I flip a coin and bungee jumping wins out and I end up landing on my head because a ravenous sea gull had been chewing on the bungee cord the night before? This second blow to my head makes me forget about the whole JFK thing and the combination to my gym locker. What if the next day in court I tell them I can’t remember anything I may have done or said on that subject so they let me go freer than O.J, and offer me a seat on the Supreme Court. I say thanks, but I don’t think George W. will ratify this because the record will show that I voted for Nader in the last two elections and in three in which he wasn’t even a candidate.
Anyway, that was just one thing I was thinking the other day while I was reading USA Today. The other was “What if global warming makes the oceans rise and New York City and Los Angeles are under water and we can start growing oranges in Utah? Well, that wouldn’t be so bad.
Dennis Hinkamp’s column appears every Friday in The Statesman. Comments can be sent to him at slightlyoffcenter@attbi.com.