Imagination Danger 911!
It’s got a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Makes you sort of think about your own imagination, how sometimes it can be dangerous, and then I threw in a number associated with danger — 911! (Sometimes I’m giddy with excitement at the cleverness spilling forth from this here dangnabit head of mine.)
What is Imagination Danger 911!?
Well, it’s many things. It’s a board game. A t-shirt. A beach blanket. A drink cozy. A rallying cry. A bowl of hummus. A plastic Slinky. A boar’s head. A supplemental sheet of some kind with lots of Excel like boxes on it. But above all, it’s a state of mind.
How often have you, dear reader, let your imagination get the best of you? How often have you, on the cusp of walking into a all-night convenience store immediately let your imagination run wild as you play out the robbery that (in your head) starts to happen while you pick up that box of band-aids for your poor little toes (that you try to stuff in those damn small shoes) or that carton of milk (which has got to be the most cliche midnight convenience store run scenario ever)? How often have you, before walking into a courthouse to pay a parking ticket — imagined the scenario that would unfold while you stand at the cashier’s window…as a disgruntled patron starts unloading lead into everyone around you?
How often does your imagination get all “911 on your ass”?
I find that lately, my Will Robinson Danger-meter is getting a little heavy on the Imagination Danger 911! scenario. I have had, no less than 10 instances, in which the imagination has transformed an everyday situation (prior to getting into said situation) into a full-blown Michael Bay movie. Some of those said situations included:
(a) A routine trip to the fabric store becomes a hostage situation, with a Soviet ringleader from Cold-War days gone by. His beef? The fabric that this country buys from his poor countrymen has driven them to poverty. He is here to make a statement. How? He will wrap every patron that happens to be in said fabric store in a carsophagus of flowery print. (You know, once that happens you can’t breathe and your life is over.) Doh!
(b) A trip to the El Pollo Loco (that’s crazy chicken to you non LA, bi-lingual folks) becomes a terrorist’s food poisoning dream-situation… Having inserted microscopic pills into each of the body cavity’s of the chicken (unbeknownst to the crack team of chicken technicians), thus infecting every Ultimate Pollo Bowl and Double-Stuffed-Double-Grilled-Guacamole Burrito purchasers for miles around.
(c) An everyday moment of trying to sell a car becomes a kidnapping scenario in which the innocent girl looking to buy her car, innocently asks if she can take the car for a test drive, in which yours truly must ride with her, in which she puts the pedal to the medal and drives out of the “local area test drive location as previously outlined by yours truly” and drives to a deserted 7-Eleven parking lot where a van of nasties get out, throw me into the back of a trunk, and take my car right after they threaten to do something even worse to me if I don’t sign over the pink slip.
What did I tell you? Imagination Danger 911!
I don’t think people in the 50’s had such imagination-overload. I think through media we have had so much opportunity to see how everyday scenarios can go completely overboard and wrong thanks to the dramatic prowess of hack directors everywhere. We can now visualize absolutely every potential bad thing that could happen in simple scenarios like picking fruit by the roadside (hit and run by the Mafia) or playing ball with your dog in the backyard (ancient wilderbeasts who are living under your property attack simply out of instinct) or even setting your TiVo to record a Season’s Pass (nanobots secretly implanted in the latest update of your TiVo box are set to infect your body the minute you try to record Charlie Rose).
People who live simple lives, away from the TVs and the movies and the overload of stimuli don’t have these issues. Their imaginations don’t run rampant. I’ll tell you one thing — the Amish sure don’t have these problems.
I’m sure of it. (Although, really — who wants to get poisoned from butter churning or get impaled by huge splinters of wood while getting involved in a barn raising. Not me!)
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In other news, I’m proud to say that tomorrow brings us yet another “Words For Your Enjoyment.” The submissions have been pouring in this week ever since a ham was given away. This week, two pizzas. Seriously. Two hot steaming pizzas will get delivered to your house. Not by me. Possibly by people just wanting to case your house so they can come back at night and steal everything (damn imagination, again!) — but two hot steaming pizzas. (Maybe with anthrax and pepperoni.) Damn it! I can’t stop using my imagination!
Saaaaaavvveeee me!
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