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When seeing is believing, brain 'paralysis' sets in
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Published: September 27, 2009
There I stood, as an awkward eighth-grader, with my way-too-skinny legs and my blue horn-rimmed glasses, eagerly awaiting the start of the Homecoming Parade. I had been looking forward to the day for weeks. My best friend and I were to walk through the streets carrying the banner in front of the eighth-grade float.
The whole class had worked tirelessly on it. We considered the float to be a work of art that consisted of a pair of hands holding a giant foot. The words on our banner explained the "float of extremities" with the words "Hand Them De-Feet." Clever, huh?
The floats were lined up in place on the hill behind the high school. The band began to play, signaling the start of the procession, as anticipation permeated the air. We knew we were on the precipice of creating a lovely long-lasting memory to file away in our minds forever and ever.
Or so we thought.
Have you ever had a moment when your eyes could barely absorb and process what you were seeing? You feel like you are in another dimension as the surreal world spins around you in snail-like fashion. Your brain has to catch up with what your eyes have just witnessed to be able to fathom what you're observing. It's a s-l-o-w process from brain "paralysis" to the brain reality of accepting that it really was what it was.
So I glanced back at our float briefly in anticipation of prancing through the streets. However, I was instantly struck by brain "paralysis" as I noticed our lovely float of extremities was rolling backward down the hill. Apparently, the eighth-grade float unhooked from the tractor and was swirling, spiraling out of control, and finally crashed onto the football field below.
"Hand Them De-Feet" was dead on arrival.
It really was what it was.
A few years later, my sister and I came home from school to discover seven cows and one bull grazing in the backyard of our residential neighborhood. Brain "paralysis" set in once again for both of us. Since our quiet neighborhood was typically cowless, we knew emergency action needed to be taken. But who do you call when cows are grazing by your swing set? My mother decided to call the police — logical enough, I suppose.
The policeman said, "Oh, I bet they're Farmer Brown's cows on the loose again. We'll get him to send a truck on over and pick them up."
A few moments later, my mother spotted a brown truck barreling up the road and ran outside yelling at the truck's driver, "Your cows are here! Your cows are in my backyard!" The truck kept going and the man looked at my mother like she had lost her mind. It seems Farmer Brown was actually the UPS man. She must have thought UPS stood for Udder Pickup Service.
It really was what it was.
Hunter Darden is an award-winning author of seven books, humor/inspiration newspaper columnist and public speaker. She lives in Statesville. Her Web site is www.booksbyhunter.net.
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