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| Not the actual culprit, just a bigger look alike. |
The misunderstanding
Spring break aligned for my entire family this year, except for my youngest son, who is happy as a clam in the Army. Yes I know, hard to believe but lieutenant Sidney H. McMath and the Third Armored Calvary Regiment, the Brave Rifles (Becky says “Happy Rifles”) are one. (I think I read Hornblower one too many times to my boys or at least Sid.)
As a family we have shared some travel adventures over time and given that we still like one another, I was inclined to try again. Truth is I wanted to see my grandson on the ski slopes; an opportunity for a flash back to when my boys where boys.
But this story turns on my granddaughter, Maggie. In maturity, with so many experiences and flavors under the belt, so to speak, and the appetite for exploration waning in any event, the easiest route to happiness is to evoke it in others, especially those you love. Desiring to begin reaping my rewards at the earliest opportunity, I volunteered to be the first to baby sit little Maggie (not yet two) so that everyone else could hit the slopes.
Maggie has yet to totally accept me as care giver and friend. It is not a negative thing toward me, just that there are others she prefers, Mommy, Daddy, grandmothers “Becka” and “Grama”, uncle Robert, uncle Sid, among others. In mitigation of her privation she hung closely to a small rag doll, “Baby” and a smallish stuffed version of the children’s TV character, “Elmo” all afternoon, in addition to her “binky”.
Thus fortified the two of us survived in good form. She had fallen asleep in the car seat upon departure from dropping everyone else off, so I just drove around while she play her nap out then we returned to the park and rolled around in one of the red wagons they leave scattered around for just such purpose, finally meeting everyone at the base bar and restaurant at the end of the ski day. Secure again among nearly all her favorites, Elmo became neglected and was inadvertently left behind, causing considerable consternation when bed time brought on a renewed need for her two friend’s companionship.
So the next morning Phillip (Maggie’s father) and I tasked ourselves with retrieving little Elmo. The lost and found at the resort was run out of a small office in the base facility locker room. The employees there answer questions, lease lockers and deal with various other issues besides the very common duty of reuniting persons with their misplaced belongings. Seeing a hint of humor in a burly white headed bearded old man fetching a little Elmo doll, I walked up to the window and asked the elderly lady (older than me) manning the desk, admittedly with a hint of gaiety in my demeanor, “You don’t happen to have an Elmo back there do you?”
The look on her face was one of surprise, spiced with a tad of shock, hint of disapproval and dash of puzzlement (the precise nature of all these attitudes were not entirely clear to me at the time but now plainly individually evident in hindsight). Her visible response seemed entirely misaligned with my inquiry, as oblique as it may have been. After a momentary hesitation in which the just described look was the sole communication, “you aren’t serious are you?” escaped her lips.
Phillip was standing there beside me and while totally deadpan, I could sense that he was as puzzled as I at her response. All I could think was that she viewed it as more odd than humorous that a burly old man with a white beard should be inquiring after an Elmo doll or maybe it was that she had visions of something improbably large. In hopes of dissolving any confusion I said, holding up my hands to demonstrate in gesture, “you know a little five or maybe six inch red Elmo”.
Her response to this clarification did nothing to enhance my sense that we were truly communicating. Instead, the element of puzzlement in the meritage of expressions on her face was replaced with more than a dash of disapproval, “I am sure we don’t have that kind of thing here” was rendered up in vocalized accompaniment to her discouraging facial expressions.
Still puzzled by the response I could only accept the disavowal and we moved on, both of us commenting on the oddity of her response, speculating upon the basis for it as we did so. That night, Elmo having been retrieved via another route by Maggie’s mother, Phillip and I related the story and our lame explanation that the lost and found lady thought it incredible that an old bearded man would be asking about an Elmo doll.
That would have been the end of it, except that at the end of the trip, while reviewing the week’s events, my adventures with Maggie and the misplaced Elmo occurrence were revisited. In rehashing the story the reality of it all suddenly dawned on me.
Elmo, on his daily TV show sometimes plays a game, “sounds like”. The human mind when faced with either a visual or auditory ambiguity will fill in missing data so as to perceive either the expected or the familiar such that something that looks like or sounds like something else can easily be mispercieved.
Plainly our lost and found lady’s hearing was not the best and perhaps Elmo had come after her time and hence was not familiar or perhaps the sounds like item was more familiar. What ever, there clearly had been a most unlikely misunderstanding at the Winter Park lost and found window.
Do I have to walk you through it?
“You don’t happen to have a ____ (sounds like Elmo) back there do you?” “You can’t be serious?!” “You know, a little five or six inch red _____(sounds like Elmo).” “I am sure we don’t have that kind of thing here.”
Maybe back at the house though?
Still don't get it? See first comment.
