Painfully Obvious, a Dunk Tank Story

During my recent trip the Van Buren Popcorn Festival, I no-... What? You want to know why I'd go to the Van Buren Popcorn Festival? Me too.

Actually, there were two reasons -
1. the band my brother is in had a show there and
2. I figured, being a popcorn festival, I'd get free popcorn.
I was sorely mistaken on the second part of that. The only free popcorn I was offered was kettle corn someone had to buy, and I obviously refused. Why "obviously," you ask? Because I don't eat kettle corn, and for the very same reason I don't use the word literally then proceed to say something very un-literal. It's dumb. The people who participate in such activities should be pushed to the outskirts of society with those guys who still wear Jinco Jeans and anyone who owns a Milli Vanilli CD.

All that aside, I had a good time. I wandered around the carnival style games for a while, trying to figure out if I could negotiate a cheaper price on the Batman belt buckle that I wanted for the sheer alliteration alone (see how catchy it is?). While I was meandering, I walked past the dunk tank. A girl of about 10 years stepped up to the throwing line, and she missed. Three times. Her friend of about the same age, in a misguided attempt to encourage her, offered this piece of advice, "Stop Missing!"

Wow... We sure got straight to the root of that problem, didn't we?

Here's what dawned on me. The advice we offer each other sometimes is just as useless and immeasurably less adorable than what this girl had to say. Here's a few of the more common ones.
"Try not to think about it."
"You shouldn't be sad. Be happy."
"Just get over it and move on with your life."
I don't think anyone's dared to say this to the ones who offer the above advice, so I'm going to lay it out right now. We know. When we're sad, we understand that the thing to do is to "turn that frown upside down" and be happy. What you can't seem to remember is that it's not always that easy, and it probably shouldn't be. If being happy and hitting the target at the dunk tank were easier, there would be no payoff in the accomplishment. Eventually the novelty of repeatedly dunking the fireman looking to raise money for a new dalmation would wear off. The happiness that you found so easily would give way to discontentment when you realized that there's something you're still missing. Something better. Something that can't happen every time because it would lose part of its essence. Something that you discover is found almost as much in the journey as it is in the destination.