On the Joy of Baseball Day Games and Click Clack 05/06/22
/So many things we used to play with as children have now been reconsidered as hazardous. I am reminded of a scene from Mad Men. Sally Draper, daughter of Don and Betty, was having a good time, running around with a plastic, dry cleaning bag over her head. Her mom, Betty Draper, possibly the worst mom in the history of television (June Cleaver she wasn't) calls her daughter over to chastise her. But what comes out of her mouth is “If the clothes that were in that dry cleaning bag are on the floor of my closet, you are going to be one unhappy young lady!” It was with that type of empathy and foresight that the makers of Click Clack must have tapped into when inventing their product. It was two acrylic balls attached at the opposite ends of a piece of string. When you flipped your wrist up and down the balls would click together at the top of their arc and then clack at the bottom. Click, clack, it went faster and faster until, oops, the acrylic balls had a previously undisclosed tendency to shatter, sending shards of sharp acrylic pieces flying through the air. As the saying goes, what could possibly go wrong?
The other comic at the baseball game, that scene actually happened to me. Or something close to that. I went to a midweek afternoon game, my favorite kind, just me and thousands of brightly t-shirted camp kids, and randomly started a conversation with another guy two seats to my right. The seat between us was empty. Somewhere in about the third inning I heard somebody in the row in back of me address his friend by his full name. I recognized the name so I turned around and saw not one, not two, not three, but four guys I used to work with, including the guy who initially hired me. I was happy to see them but mortified that I was there by myself. I wondered what they were thinking, “Poor guy, he has no friends,” so I started talking more to the guy two seats away in my row. I think I fooled them. But when I told this story to John, he came up with the whispered bribe, “If I buy you a hot dog and beer will you pretend to be my friend?” Now in reality, I didn’t quite sink to that level, but I came pretty darn close. Truth is, I plan to go to a couple more midweek afternoon games this summer, so if I sort of know you, do me a favor and sit somewhere else.
Happy Cinco De Mayo and Happy National Cartoonists Day to the best cartoonist I know, and also the one I work with, John Colquhoun.
Andy and John