In the Face of Danger...

 

Hello, Dear Readers.  It’s good to see you.

Earlier this week, I was listening to this wonderful song called “Fearless,” and it got me to thinking about all those little everyday acts of bravery that we manage to pull off whenever danger stares us right in the face.  Most of the time, we just react out of instinct, of course, because it’s really pretty hard to be consistently aware of all the dangerous stuff that might happen at any given moment.  I don’t spend a great deal of time, for example, worrying about what I’d do if, say, I found a poisonous snake under my couch.  I suppose it could happen, but I don’t think about it a lot.  Now, my dad worries about things like the frequency at which a subwoofer might burst into flames and the elevation at which a horse might explode, but he’s retired.  He has a lot of free time to fill.  Most people aren’t like him, and that’s probably a good thing.

This coming week, though, I’m going to have to be a little more like my dad and a little more prepared for danger because this coming Monday is Valentine’s Day.  And that means only one thing—Cupid is coming.  And that throws more fear into my heart than a flaming subwoofer and an exploding horse combined.  The issue with me isn’t love, though.  I’m not afraid of falling in love.  Hell, I’ve fallen in love for the rest of my life, like, five times already, so it isn’t that.  No, it’s that when you stop to think about it, Cupid is really kind of one scary guy.  It takes some nerve to stand up to Cupid, but it takes a lot more cunning to just out-and-out hide from him for a whole day.

So what’s so scary about Cupid?  Well, first off, he’s armed. He’s a churlish little imp-child with a weapon.  And it really is the weapon that distinguishes Cupid as Cupid.  I mean, if you just saw Cupid without the weaponry, you’d probably think, “Wow, a half-naked baby with wings.  I wonder what that’s about.”  But give that half-naked baby a bow and arrow, and suddenly, it’s very clearly all about love.  Cupid is in the building.

And think about how we talk about love when it comes to Valentine’s Day. No one “wades forth” or “skips happily” into love.  Cupid makes us “fall” in love.  And when you’re really in love, you “fall hard” for someone.  So, in a way, I guess the armaments kind of make sense.  After all, if someone shot me in the heart with an arrow, I’d probably fall down, and I’d probably fall pretty hard.  Of course, I wouldn’t necessarily fall in love unless I happened to be standing next to an open pit full of love when I got shot, but I think the idea of wounding you is more about just immobilizing you so that the magic potion on the arrow can take effect.  That way, when you wake up, Cupid’s potion has worked its magic, and you fall in love with whatever you see first.  Of course, under that logic, it’s kind of amazing that more people don’t fall in love with the pavement or the interior roof of an ambulance since those are probably the first things they’d see when they came to…but I digress.

But aside from just the necessary wounding that’s apparently an integral part of falling in love, I think the archery gear is a little too much on the violent side. So, I tried to imagine what else would work.  At first, I thought that maybe just a rock would do.  But I have to admit that when I really thought about it, a half-naked baby with a rock didn’t seem much more inviting than a half-naked baby with a bow and arrow.  I mean, that’s just got “head injury” written all over it, and while a head injury will often make you fall down, it’s not quite the same thing…especially when you get back up and discover that you don’t remember how to walk.

And of course, just a big stick probably wouldn’t work either for a couple of reasons.  First, there’s the pesky brain trauma issue again, but more than that, the whole point of using an arrow is that Cupid doesn’t have to be right up on you to make you fall in love.  For a stick to work, it would have to be something more along the lines of a 20 foot pole, but even then, Cupid would have to come at you with a fair amount of force to actually make you fall down. And then, of course, he would run the risk of impaling himself on the other end of the pole, so that probably wouldn’t be such a good plan.  I suppose Cupid could always take a swinging whack at you, but you have to be pretty strong to swing a 20 foot pole with much accuracy, and I just don’t think Cupid is in that kind of shape.  He is, after all, only a baby.

So, I guess when you really stop to think about it, a bow and arrow really is the best equipment for making people fall in love.

The thing is that on every other day of the year, Cupid is probably a pretty nice guy.  He probably just sits at home on the couch eating Cheese Curls and watching television.  And wondering when he’s going to grow some hair on his chest.  He probably feels like a totally misunderstood little half-naked baby.  But then Valentine’s Day arrives, and his frustration boils over.  And he just snaps.  That’s the only explanation that makes sense to me.

But beyond the weaponry and the anger, what I find most disconcerting about Cupid is that he has wings.  I mean, he’s a flying baby, and there are few things I find quite so terrifying as that. Even the concept of flying adults doesn’t worry me quite as much, not because I believe that adults are inherently better-behaved than kids are but just because I know that grownups tend to be busier.  They have less free time to cause trouble.  Babies have nothing but free time. Put a pair of wings on a kid, and you’re just inviting disaster as far as I’m concerned.

I mean, things that fly are sometimes scary in and of themselves, but they get really scary when they’re things that aren’t supposed to be able to fly.  As a young child, I remember seeing a picture of a flying fish in a book about animals and just thinking that that was about the freakiest thing on earth (and it really kind of is).  To this day, I have no real interest in going to a beach because I’m so haunted by the image of a giant fish (with fangs, of course) flying out of the sea and coming after me.  And think about the villains in The Wizard of Oz.  Sure, the witch was scary (and she could fly), but the things that scared me most were those flying monkeys.  They didn’t need broomsticks.  They had wings.  They could fly all on their own.  And is there anything more terrifying than a winged, flying monkey?  Well….yes.  A winged, flying angry baby with a bow and arrow.

But just imagine having a kid who could fly.  When kids are little, you have to watch them all the time, but at least they’re on the ground for the most part.  And when they’re not on the ground, it’s usually because you put them somewhere higher.  But imagine taking a little kid who could fly to the park.  You’d look away for a moment, and the next thing you knew, that kid would be halfway to Toledo.  At family barbecues, some distant relative would inevitably make a snide remark about how it’s always your kid who is circling around overhead like a vulture, and doubtless some cranky old man with a BB gun on the next block over would eventually take a shot at your child just for flying too close to his roof.

And of course, a flying child would be mischievous.  Of course, he/she would cause trouble.  Who wouldn’t?  I mean, as an adult I could tell myself that if I could fly, I’d do humanitarian things.  I’d take medicine to sick people and food to the hungry.  I’d help those in need and fight crime.  And I might really do that stuff.  But mostly, I’d fly around dropping tiny bags of oatmeal on people’s heads.  I’d land on top of people’s cars when they were stopped at red lights just to freak them out.  I’d hover outside of people’s windows late at night and watch their televisions.  I’d perch in the trees like a giant gargoyle just because it would be creepy.  I would be a terrible, evil flying person, and I know that.  So why would I expect a flying child to be better-intentioned than I am?  Why would anyone expect Cupid to behave?

So, I don’t really wonder why I’m afraid of Cupid.  I wonder why everyone else isn’t.  I mean, why do we think Cupid is such a wonderful being?  He flies up when you’re not looking and shoots you in the chest with an arrow.  What exactly is so romantic about that?  I mean, I’m all for Valentine’s Day, and I’m as crazy about love as the next person, but I’m pretty sure that what Cupid actually does is a felony in most states.  He probably isn’t doing hard time somewhere just because he’s too good at getting away—I don’t think even Dog the Bounty Hunter could catch that flying half-naked baby.

Seriously, though, if you’re going to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, do enjoy yourself.  Have a wonderful dinner out.  Eat all the chocolate you can get your hands on.  Stop and smell the roses.  If you’re already in love, you’ve got nothing to worry about.  If you aren’t in love, you’ve still got a few days and an entire internet to do something about it with.  As for me, I’m going to slip into a Kevlar vest and spend Monday in the house.  With the windows closed and the curtains drawn. I can’t beat Cupid, so I’m just going to try to trick him into believing I’m on vacation.  And in the meantime, I guess I should probably get a flashlight and check under the couch for poisonous snakes.

Philosophy for a hungry planet.

Enjoy.

© R. Rissler, 2011. All rights reserved.