Expectations

This morning I woke up to a radio show and a question was posed: "Would you eat your own booger for $25?"

I think that set up the day, the strangeness of it, the way the sky darkened and shook and emptied.  The way I sat in a meeting and it seemed it wasn't one meeting but many, with the way conversations spun, so many at once, and then, suddenly, all eyes were on us as we stood up with our toy mechanism, with its brand new batteries, its shiny coat of paint, and the motor and the accompanying audio simply, without explanation, wouldn't work.  But it had worked. And it would work, again, of course, after everyone had gone.


Maybe she is shy today? Someone said of the motorized doll.  And there were a few nervous laughs but mostly biting lips.  Because she has to work, she must work and impress and if she doesn't then what?  I thought it so incredibly strange, so much riding on this little doll, so many millions of dollars, so many executives waiting for the right kind of 'wow' from this poor piece of plastic with tangled hair.  

When my friend and colleague carried the doll away, she clutched it by the arm, disappointed, let it hang limp at her side, the way a little girl would carry her baby doll through the world.  It didn't concern me so much as make me laugh.  I mean, how wonderful is this stubborn little doll?  This finicky, tangled little thing with its sneaky forever smile who has a mind of her own.