'Matter of Laugh or Death,' the award-winning humor column

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

(appearing each week in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT)

LESSONS IN DIVERSITY

My wife loves her flower garden. It’s her pride and joy. Not only does she water and weed and, of course, talk to her flowers each day, she also grows little flowers on the back porch. As these flowers grow, she transplants them into a series of bigger flower pots until they’re ready to be moved to the main flower bed out front. It’s a very long and meticulous process.

Being the impatient sort, I recently said to my wife, “Let’s just buy the finished product, plant it, and be done with it. You’ll have the final results without all those wasted hours.”

She tried to explain to me that she enjoys all those hours. I just shook my head in amazement. Why would someone want to spend extra time doing a tedious chore, I thought.

A few days later I sat down on the couch on a Sunday afternoon to watch an exciting four-hour Red Sox game (20 minutes of baseball action and three hours and 40 minutes of spitting and scratching). My wife walked into the room and suddenly turned the TV off. “Hey!” I screamed. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?!”

She smiled sweetly and said, “Let’s just turn the TV back on at 7:30 tonight, get the score, and be done with it. You’ll have the final results without all those wasted hours.”

Oooh!! I hate it when she nails me with my own words.

My wife’s clever little demonstration taught me an important lesson: some people are just plain weird if they don’t like the same things I like.

No wait, that’s not the lesson. That’s the way I used to think. The lesson is that people are different. (Yes, a remarkable discovery, and I’m proud to say it only took four-and-a-half decades for me to come to this realization.)

It was hard for me to comprehend at first, but it is true that some people in the world do not particularly care for jelly donuts, the Boston Red Sox, or the editorial page of the New York Post. And more importantly, it is not right for me to judge them or condemn them just because their tastes are different than mine. In fact, I should embrace our diverse interests. (Whoa, now I’m starting to sound like the editorial page of the New York Times.)

Before you think I’ve gone completely off the deep end, there are still some issues that are non-negotiable in my mind: tattoos on women are gross; the Yankees have won enough already; the ACLU are dopes for thinking that prayer in school is more dangerous than kiddie porn on the Internet; and the best movie ever made, hands down, is “Casablanca.”

But it is indeed true that people have a wide range of likes and dislikes. My new awareness of diversity turned out to be a great opportunity to avoid doing stuff around the house.

Last Saturday morning, my wife asked me for the hundredth time to paint the living room. I replied, “I find faded paint on walls quite attractive. Forcing someone to violate his personal code of aesthetics is nothing short of psychological torture.”

Later on she asked me for the thousandth time to straighten up the garage. I replied, “My ancestors embraced clutter. Forcing someone to desecrate his roots is nothing short of cultural genocide.”

That afternoon she asked me for the millionth time to clean up the basement. I bowed my head reverently and replied, “Dust is a sacrament. Forcing someone to defile his faith not only violates the First Amendment, but is nothing short of religious imperialism.”

Surprisingly, my wife did not get upset. Each time she simply nodded, said, “Well, OK,” and walked away. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I if had known multi-culturalism was this great, I would’ve joined the Democratic party years ago.

That evening, I walked into the kitchen and asked my wife what was for dinner. She replied, “In my culture, food is a sin. Forcing someone to consign her soul to eternal damnation is nothing short of metaphysical murder.” With that, she picked up her watering can and went outside to be with her flowers.

Oooh!! I hate it when she nails me with my own words.

©2002