Imagine you walk into a restaurant and the two items on the menu are rat poison and raccoon poop. You choose the poop, at least it will not kill you. A year later, the person that you were dining with points out that you are a raccoon poop eater. You shake your head in frustration and say with exhaustion in your voice, “I do not champion raccoon poop. I chose between two really bad choices.” That is a ridiculous possibility, but someone shared this analogy with me, thus inspiring this post.
So, let’s shift to something more likely. Sorry Chris.
Imagine yourself at Six Flags with four well-behaved children of longtime friends. The children are immensely enjoying their time at the amusement park. As the only adult, you pride yourself of all of the compliments you are receiving about the exceptional behavior of the children. Your crew then decides to ride on the Gut Twister, and the experience lives up to its name. You managed to keep your vomit contained to yourself, but you are covered in the remains of that Whataburger bacon and egg taquito you scarfed at breakfast time.
You exit the ride, and the children help you to a bench, where the cool morning eases your nauseousness. Now, you actually feel better than you did at Whataburger after you ate the breakfast taquito. The only problem, you are covered in your body’s version of the taquito’s digestion. You can leave the park, but that means the well-behaved children have to leave too.
You decide to remedy the situation by finding a change of clothes in the Six Flags gift shop. Thanks to Covid, there are only two giftshops in the whole park open. The ones that are open, are not open because they contain the most popular merchandise, they are open because they are not owned by Six Flags. It seems that Six Flags sold off two of their most unpopular stores in the park. As a franchise, Six Flags chose not to open its gift shops because of the pandemic, but these two privately owned stores chose to open. This means that the two open giftshops are Droopy and Yosemite Sam themed. The only upside to the situation is that the two stores are within twenty feet of one another, so you can easily evaluate both options.
You find in Yosemite Sam’s store that they have exactly one t-shirt option. The t-shirt is that of Yosemite Sam himself, with his guns blazing. As if the guns drawn is not enough, the shirt reads, “I’m only goin’ count 2, and then blast ya!”
You exit the gun toting themed store, and you head to the Droopy themed store. You think to yourself that Droopy has been around a long time. You had no idea people still thought enough of Droopy to buy Droopy themed merchandise. Perhaps, the fall season is to blame, the Droopy store also only has a single t-shirt. The shirt features a picture of Droopy with the words, “You know what? That makes me mad!”
You consider your options. It is a typical fall day in Texas, which means that before long it will be nearly 90 degrees. Anything other than a t-shirt is not an option. You appreciate that between getting all the way to your car with the children in tow, getting to a store, and then getting back to the park, you will waste at least two hours of their day at the park, and you will prolong your time in your puke-stained shirt. The smell of the shirt is beginning to worsen as the day warms up.
You come to appreciate that your only way to escape the smell of your own puke is to pick a t-shirt, which one is it going to be, Yosemite Sam or Droopy? You feel that the Yosemite Sam shirt suggests a trigger happy, angry persona. At the same time, the Droopy shirt comes across as either being for some that is easily offended by everything or making fun of people that speak up about offensive things in our society. It is easy to find plenty wrong with both shirts. No part of you wants either of them.
You then notice that both stores give a portion of their proceeds to charity. Low and behold, the Yosemite Sam store gives to a charity group that helps fund Project Lead the Way at schools in poorer districts. As a lover of math and science you are a strong support of such an initiative. The Droopy store donates to the local zoo. You are not well informed on the value of zoos, but the idea of animals living in captivity makes you sad. No part of you wants either t-shirt, so you base your decision on the small matter of where the store will donate the charitable portion of the proceeds from your purchase.
The day at Six Flags with the well-behaved children continues on. You look ridiculous in a Yosemite Sam t-shirt; the persona is not a fit for you in anyway, but you overcome this when you see how much fun the kids are having. You and your little buddies close down the park. They are all truly grateful for the special day. It is time to drive the kids home.
You drop the first two kids off, and you are surprised that their dad sees your Yosemite Sam shirt, and he suddenly wants to be your best friend. Despite knowing him for years, you grew up with his wife. You and the hubby have never been that close.
He says to you, “Yeah, we should just count to two and then blast ’em.” You naturally wonder who he is referring to, but you want the conversation to end, so you do not inquire. You switch the conversation to what is normally every parent’s favorite, “how incredibly well behaved his children were.” He goes back to Yosemite Sam.
“I worry about the world my good kids are growing up in. We need more Yosemite Sams in the world,” he growls. “I am glad you see things my way,” his tone softens.
Luckily, you have two more children to drop off, so there is no possible way to stay for a beer. Although, you sense that he would gladly have a few beers with you and then send you on your way with children in the car. You work to suppress the conversation in your head as you drive the other two children to their home. You can hardly believe what awaits you at the next drop off.
The children hop from the car, and you walk them to the door, where their mother meets you with an angry, incredulous look on her face. “What are you wearing? You had my children with you, while you were a shirt with Yosemite Sam on it??”
You try to explain that you only had two options, and you did not like either option. She never lets you get to the part where you made a decision based on the fact that the Yosemite Sam store donates to Project Lead the Way for underprivileged schools. She never wants you anywhere near her children again. She tells you that you are everything wrong in the world today. Apparently, she really does not like Yosemite Sam. You feel worse than you did at the bottom of the hill on the Gut Twister.
The next time that you want to become angry or pass judgement on someone for their choice in the presidential elections of 2016 and 2020, I hope that you will think back to this day at the theme park. I hope that the 2024 presidential election is not another trip on the Gut Twister. I continue to pray every day that our country will unite and begin to work to understand one another’s points of view. Those winning right now are not winning on merit, they are winning because we are all too busy fighting amongst ourselves. They are winning because they successfully made us fear one another’s ideas. We are aligned by memes (t-shirts), without an understanding of each individual’s perspective of what stands behind these terse representations.