It all began almost twenty years ago when I came home from a work conference. It started with one of those plastic name tags. The kind that had the pin cheaply and barely attached on the back. You know, those plastic nametags with the safety pins that put large holes in your shirt when you remove them. The ones that make you say “Damn” after you realize you have yet again ruined another shirt, all for the professional save of wearing a culturally required piece of conference jewelry. This was all a time somewhere before the clip, elastic or lanyard, and in the era of the Apple IMac G3 colors. This is when my husband began hiding left over nametags in obscure places in our home for me to find. The possibilities were endless, the creativity profound and every one of them caught me off guard. He loved to make me laugh.
Sometimes they’d show up on the milk carton in the refrigerator. Or in the butter. Other times they’d be posted on the bathroom mirror. Or in the shower, on the toilet, in the book I was reading or found weeks later in the pocket of my coat or in my sock drawer. One single nametag could bring weeks or even months of finds.
By the new millennium it became a game we shared and I took his lead. We’d use any nametag ever received, anywhere. In any way, shape or form. Any event was open game. Nametags were brought home from having been on committees, at programs, in conferences, events, plays or even at an occasional funeral. It became a full court press as each one of us tried to distract and outwit the other with our play. In time, the nametag was replaced by anything silly. And that is where my husband is King. The King of Comedy. A Warrior for Whimsy. He is one of the funniest people I know and it is one of his most natural gifts. He is an endless genius for creating.
A year ago he found two very tiny, left over Star War figures on the floor in our dining room. They came from a toy which had fallen out of a box of old toys we had donated to Goodwill. One early morning I was barely awake and found the figures in a face off in our bathroom. Darth Vadar was in one corner of the tile, above the toothbrushes facing Luke Skywalker who was in the other corner, three feet away by the Listerine. Clearly Luke was winning, as he was placed on a shelf a tad higher for the advantage. It was a good day in the universe, and I left for work, smiling.
The figures stayed there helping me fight tooth decay, until last fall. That was when I found they had moved on. Sir Jeff of Comedy had now placed them as the alter egos in our kitschy salt and pepper set. He had moved them into the bathroom for a more pure comedic set up. It was brilliant. Bizarre, strange, funny and everything one needs to start their day right.
