Cartoon of four babies in baby beds. One baby says, “Do you know what we have here? We have the makings of a great quartet!”
When I have served in nurseries and the babies began wailing, I’ve often wondered what it would be like if the kiddos cried in harmony. Someone needs to modify an autotune device so it could make church nurseries harmonious places.
We fool ourselves if we think the guy who dies with the most toys wins. The other day, I ran through a cemetery. There were impressive headstones, large monuments, and simple markers. Yet I was the only one there. No one cared about these tributes to a past life and the occupants didn’t seem like they cared either.
I love jelly beans. There! I’ve said it! I loved them ever since I bit into my first licorice jelly bean. They gave me great satisfaction because I soon learned many kids didn’t like them. So I would happily collect all the black licorice jelly beans while my classmates would gladly hand them over.
When I drew this cartoon I was thinking about the pressure to perform that some kids face. I am not from a sports-minded family and I probably passed that same lack of interest on to my kids. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in competition. It’s just that there weren’t very many traveling art competitions and ultra competitive writing conferences at my elementary school. (sure, there were spelling bees. I never made it past “pneumonia.”)
Last October, the Halloween obsession was people dressing up like clowns and charging people. There were stories about people turning the tables and attacking the clowns. All that month, I kept hearing Send in the Clowns swirl around in my mind. There was a time when clowns were considered fun and humorous. Now, they are seen as a threat and a maligned subgroup.
One thing is for sure, when you go for a job interview, don’t dress as a clown or act like one, unless that is one of the job requirements. Even then, I would leave the clown shoes at home.