Slide on the Ice

Do you ever get one of those wicked urges to do something that's out of the blue and not necessarily approved of by society? For instance, I have very often wanted to put on one of those airplane life jackets and pull on the tabs to blow it up. They fascinate me to no end. One time the flight attendent demonstrating all the safety things stood right by me and actually put the life vest on. There was the tab. Just dangling. All I had to do was reach out my hand and pull. Resist! Resist! (Would they throw you off of the plane for doing something like that? How much trouble could you get in?) Another urge came when I saw a hammer lying on a glass table top. The hammer was in hand. The glass was oh-so-breakable. It's nothing that's malicious really, just a mental image that I'm curious to see become reality.

Of course, many of these urges are much less harmful then the hammer on the glass. Sometimes they're just an urge to, say, burst out into song and dance. On my morning commute on the BART, I suddenly wanted to skip down the car while singing "Oh, it's a jolly 'oliday with Mary...When Mary 'olds yer 'and, you feel so grand. Your heart starts beatin' like a big brass band...No wonder that it's Mary that we love!" This could be due to the fact that on Monday I saw Mary Poppins in the Castro Theatre and it was a sing-a-long. It was really quite an experience to be in a theatre where adding your own soundtrack to the movie is actually encouraged. Oh! Just think of the image! Me, skipping along down the aisle, hands in pockets, singing out about the jolly 'oliday. How would those tired, over-worked daily commuters react?

I think Sidney Freedmen would have approved. To put it in his own words, "Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice - pull down your pants and slide on the ice."