There’s a new father at the restaurant where I work. I asked about his daughter the other day. “She’s doing great,” Dave said, radiating paternal pride. “I took Maya to her six month appointment this afternoon. The doctor said that out of a hundred babies born that same day, she’s the biggest one. Heaviest and longest,” he added, grinning and holding his hands out in a measure that traditionally indicates a prize-winning Northern from Lake Mille Lacs.
Now I know it’s not about how big she is, or her capacity to eat because my pal Dave wouldn’t be bragging about his daughter being in the top of her weight class if, say, she were a high school sophomore. It’s about extremes.
We’re living in an extreme world. It’s a uvula-searing peppermint, whiplash roller-coaster, super-sized, double-D, Vin Diesel kind of a world and nothing is permitted to be ordinary anymore. Every last element of life must be fuel-injected with bungee-jumping excitement! Poured down your gullet Mountain Dew style, about a foot from your tipped back face, while the entire world screams its approval. Or disapproval. It doesn’t matter; it’s all good, as long as there is screaming.
I don’t have anything against screaming. Screaming is a pretty useful thing. We are designed to scream, in fact, when something exciting or noteworthy takes place. Winning the lottery? Yes. Winning the Green Party nomination? Maybe. Knocking back a soda pop? No.
We’re living in a world where peanut butter logs call themselves Power Bars, where brassieres promise miracles, where dull, plodding gelatin comes in X-Treme Jell-O Gel Tubes, where even pizza crust, the part that you throw away, is stuffed. Three-Alarm Chili is a Gerber’s flavor now. Where’s the Habanero Hell Fire Suicide Sauce? Hot damn! It’s a Spinal Tap world with the volume cranked up to 11. You can’t hear your car stereo anymore unless it makes the body panels vibrate and sets off nearby seismographs.
If you can’t be the biggest, you had better be the smallest, wearing Gap Size 0 jeans and gabbing on a cell phone no bigger than a Sea Monkey. What’s the hottest new car on the market today? The Mini Cooper, a four-passenger runabout roughly the size of a coffin. Given the size of the SUVs roaring around with their body panels vibrating, I can see how that would be useful.
It’s all about the spin, baby. I get it. With so much essentially useless stuff competing for my attention day in and day out, it’s all got to shout. A couple of dynamic adjectives here and there go a long way in making it seem like I’m taking in something of value. That’s how “money guru” Suze Orman can talk for 45 minutes about “creating wealth” and “channeling abundance” before I snap that fool radio off. I wonder how much she gets paid for “channeling” noise and “creating” gibberish? The whole concept of marketing is built on “buzz.” Anybody who’s ever written a resume knows what I’m talking about. Were you a file clerk for the last eight months on that temp job? A mere drone? Or were you in charge of streamlining and organizing mission-critical data for over 1,300 people? That’s what I thought! Way to be pro-active, chief! Shoot me a Mike’s Hard Lemonade! Wooooooo! Awright!
The passion for extremes takes some bizarre turns. The other night at the restaurant, a trendoid jock seriously asked me to get him a Red Bull and vodka. Uppers and downers blended so he could be an energetic drunk. Garnish with Ritalin and serve.
I’ve observed this insatiable urge for instant peak excitement before. Children are hard-wired that way. Kids oscillate between demanding to be entertained right away and needing to be appeased immediately. Now the whole world’s got colic. I don’t know if they need to be burped or spanked. When I told jocko we didn’t serve Red Bull, he had a Def-Con Five fit worthy of Celine Dion being poked by a pin at a costume fitting. He stormed out using X-Treme words like “never” and “no way.” Sorry, Dave. Maya no longer qualifies as the heaviest and longest baby.
Writer, performer, and femme fatale Colleen Kruse is at mscolleenkruse@ hotmail.com.
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