Damage Control

Cesare Borgia was a 15th century Italian statesman. He was the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI. He knew about life’s vicissitudes, saying, “I have taken care of everything in the course of my life, only not for death, and now I have to die completely unprepared.” Damage Control plans are sometimes useless!

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The Gump movie has a memorable scene. A runner’s yellow shirt is splashed with mud, soon to become the Smiley Face emoticon. The runner utters the proverbial response, “Ah, Expletive.” Gump’s terse reply? “It happens.”

We exist on the precipice of an invisible abyss. It’s called Life. Things happen there. Life sneaks up on us. Things can go sideways. We’re “born into trouble as the sparks fly upward.” Dog owners know this. “Uh oh,” is a clarion call to action…damage control.

‘It’ happens to me often. Like a couple weeks ago. I’m unprepared for the consequences of lunch at Hot Dog Alley. The enormous ‘dogs’ are toxic. They laugh in the face of heartburn. Human nature is satanic…we yearn to test ‘the edge,’ just to see if it’s still there. It always is!

Dairy Queen is my damage control plan. Ice cream overcomes all sins. I ease into the drive-thru queue, order a chocolate-dipped cone. Large, of course. I pretend it’s a panacea. It’s precisely what a pill-pushing gastroenterologist would prescribe as a palliative for my stupidity. Pretense is my anesthetic of choice. Denial is a close second.

I take a huge bite, then smugly drive off. Ice cream has its own nature…it melts. Tiny rivulets trickle down. They pool at the dam of my fingers. My tongue is thrilled. It licks the leaking nectar.

The trickle soon becomes a raging stream. I lick frantically. My car weaves wildly. Two bikers avoid becoming a hood ornament. They curse me maliciously, something about my mother.

It gets worse. Hysteria takes over. So frantic is the licking that all mental synapses fail. Then ‘it’ happens…the cone crumbles. I watch helplessly, anticipating an impending disaster. The gigantic blob of ice cream seems to take a week to fall into my lap. Yes, I used the same expletive you would have.

Everybody has these stories. Take red spaghetti sauce. Its sole purpose is to ridicule you in public. It loves all things white. A bib is the only known damage control plan for such a spectacle.

Ah, cell phones. They have a built-in affinity for all things wet. Never talk on one anywhere near a toilet. One day I’m sitting on a bench, talking on mine. A cup of hot tea sits harmlessly on the floor beneath me. You know what happens. Quantum mechanics can’t explain how a cell phone can end up in the bottom of a cup of hot tea.

Want a fail-safe damage control plan for soggy cells? Forget hair dryers. Bake ‘em. That’s right. Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees, turn it off and stick ‘em in. A couple of hours later you’re back in business.

Life is unpredictable, a gamble with incredible odds. Who can argue? If it were a bet you wouldn’t take it. But then you weren’t asked. And if life weren’t so serious it’d be a joke. It’s about attitude. We choose---a smile or a frown.

Robert Burns, the poet, wrote: “…(the) best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry, and leave us naught but grief and pain for promised joy.” Hamlet had his say: “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them though we will.”

Most damage control plans are useless. Maybe they simply assuage our obsessive control-oriented nature. Where humans are concerned, who can say? But Life’s in control here…it has its own schemes.

John Quincy Adams, our 6th President, abandoned his damage control ideas: “I inhabit a weak, frail decayed tenement; battered by the winds and broken in on by the storms, and, from all I can learn, the Landlord does not intend to repair.”

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Damage control plans--make ‘em if you must. But for today, loosen up…remember, the only way to paradise is in a hearse. Buy the ticket, enjoy the ride.

Bud Hearn
October 18, 2013