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Okay, name The 7 Dwarfs.
I??™ll give you a little
time.
Pretend you??™re listening
to one of those instrumental songs that you hear during a quiz show when
there is some thinking required.
Remember that Snow White
was not one of The 7 Dwarves.
Time??™s up!
The 7 Dwarfs are Bashful,
Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy and Sneezy.
If you??™re like most of
us, you were not able to name all of them, but I??™ll bet most of you
remembered Grumpy.
Why is that?
It??™s probably because we
all can understand Grumpy because we have all been grumpy. We??™ve all
probably been grumpy at least once every day.
When I was a teenager, I
could have been at least 6 of The 7 Dwarfs, not only because of my size,
but because of my moods. I alternated between being Bashful, Dopey,
Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy and Sneezy. I never tried being Doc. I think he
was a little too smart for me.
I was typically sleepy
when my mind should have been taken up with study.
I tried being bashful,
but I wasn??™t good at it.
The sneezy part came in
when I tried to convince my father that I was allergic to hard work.
That proved I was dopey
and made my father grumpy.
Dopey and grumpy were my
strongest traits.
I was good at being dopey
and grumpy. It came natural to me.
My mother could put up
with me being dopey, but she wasn??™t about to put up with me being
grumpy.
There were days when I
felt a true need to be grumpy. I didn??™t need a reason. I??™d wake up on
the wrong side of the bed and would be bound and determined to spend my
day mired in the depths of grumpiness.
It was difficult to
rescue me from my grumphood. I was stubborn. If Stubborn had been one
of the 7 Dwarfs instead of Doc, I could have been all of them. My
stubbornness, depending upon which side of my family you were talking
to, was blamed upon my German, Swedish, English or Welsh heritage.
Fortunately for me, my
mother was just as stubborn in some ways as I was. The only difference
was that she could blame her selective bull-headedness upon only her
German or Swedish ancestry.
The problem was that
while I thought Dopey and Grumpy were wonderful individuals to emulate;
my mother thought only Happy was worth imitating.
So there were those
showdown days. Days when I was going to be grumpy, no matter what.
Days when my mother was going to make sure I was wearing a happy face,
no matter what.
The problem with being
happy is that we sometimes forget to let our face know that we??™re
happy. But when we??™re grumpy, our face becomes a neon sign advertising
the fact.
My mother would make it
her immediate goal to change my attitude and would concentrate her
efforts on making me laugh.
They were some classic
battles. Grumpy versus Happy.
My mother believed that
happiness was both wisdom and riches. She believed that I would seldom
be happier than I expected to be.
I could tell when my
mother was on a mission to save me from my grumpiness. I would set my
phasers to stun. My mother would put her deflector shields in place. I
would try to ignore her.
You couldn??™t ignore my
mother. She was much too nice and too goofy to be ignored.
There??™s a big difference
between being goofy and being dopey. Goofy was a talking dog and Dopey
was one of The 7 Dwarfs.
Mom would buzz around me
like a bee around a yellow flower. She??™d make faces. She??™d tell the
stupidest jokes. She??™d tell funny family stories, especially those who
depicted her as the fool. She??™d smile, giggle, laugh, chortle and
guffaw.
I??™d try not to laugh. It
was the last thing on earth that I wanted to do. I wanted to be grumpy.
My face would nearly crack in an effort to keep a smile from crossing my
lips.
Grumpy was no match for
Happy. I??™d laugh.
My mother would win and
teach me in the process that a happy person makes others happy.
My mother would laugh and
say, ???You found a tee-hee??™s nest with a ha-ha??™s egg in it.???
Thanks to my mother, I
have advanced from being a dopey and grumpy teenager to becoming a dopey
and happy adult.
?©Al Batt 2005 |
