Have you ever invented or made-up something you were so proud of… only to find out that your creation already existed?
When I was a little girl, I was obsessed with the development and life-cycle of jokes. I vowed to make up a joke, tell everyone I knew (along with a few lucky people I didn’t), and my goal was to someday hear my own joke told back to me. Unfortunately, I was about four years old and the “funniest” joke I made up went something like this:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
(Person shrugs their shoulders because, let’s face it, there are a HUNDRED of these.)
To call the firemen for nothing!
(After an awkwardly long silence, their blank stare morphs into an over-enthusiastic laugh once they realize that my joke is done. I am too young to recognize social cues like the above mentioned pause and fake laugh, and I end up strutting away feeling quite sure that any day now, my goal will be realized.)
This, I’m not ashamed to say, has somewhat carried over into my adult life. In college, my roommate, Krissy (what, WHAT!!) and I were sitting around talking about how much we loved each other when she called me her brother-from-another-mother. I then said… “OMG!” (Not really though, because acronyms weren’t as cool as they are today) “You’re my sister-from-another-mister!!”
I went on to enthusiastically use this phrase whenever possible... hoping, obviously, to have it repeated back to me one fine day.
Fast forward five years – Ray, my semi-new boyfriend and I are watching TV and someone says the phrase, sister-from-another-mister. I start freaking out because at last (!!) my childhood dream has been realized! Ray is looking at me with this brilliant mixture of confusion and mocking disbelief. He then tells me definitively that I did not make that saying up and goes on to provide proof. I won’t even attempt to relay the crushing devastation that followed. Meany.
Fast forward five years – Ray, my semi-new boyfriend and I are watching TV and someone says the phrase, sister-from-another-mister. I start freaking out because at last (!!) my childhood dream has been realized! Ray is looking at me with this brilliant mixture of confusion and mocking disbelief. He then tells me definitively that I did not make that saying up and goes on to provide proof. I won’t even attempt to relay the crushing devastation that followed. Meany.
Fast forward three more years. I have not let Ray ruining my childhood dream destroy our relationship and he and I are living together in beautiful sin. On a random Wednesday during a particularly long week (you know, the one where it’s Tuesday and you’re all, “it’s Friday, right?”), I say to Ray, “Yay! It’s hump day!” His eyes light up – a big smile spreads across his unknowing face. “I made that up!” he says…
And Karmic Justice Is Served
