Like an episode of Three's Company

I've always hated the show Three's Company. At one place where I lived I never got to control what we watched on television, and the guys who did for some reason had a fixation with Three's Company. So there I sat during TV time, trying to read a book, but being endlessly tortured by that damned show instead.

Almost every single episode boiled down to one of the roommate's misunderstanding what another roommate said or was up to, then supposed hilarity ensued, lah lah lah. And it all could have been easily resolved if the one roommate just asked the other roommate what the deal was. You would think after countless embarrassments they would all eventually learn to communicate better.

I have a tendency to talk to the television and voice my opinion even then. I got punched a lot, but eventually I, unlike Jack, Chrissy, and Janet, learned my lesson.

Right, so, this has nothing at all to do with Three's Company, although it does involve one person being on a different page from all the rest.

[This was several months ago. Something reminded me of it today.]
I was headed to Birmingham with some friends. We pass through this area on the highway with a lot of businesses, strip malls, traffic lights, and everywhere we look there are banners up for different activities, almost all of them seemed to have something to do with children's activities.

Free Children's Clinic. Karate Lessons. Free Soccer Clinic. Fall Festival. Sports Clinic. Mom's Day Out. Ballet registration now! Enroll in this. Enroll in that. Free this. Tot Shots this Saturday. Low cost that. Your child must do this now or be ostracized forever and you suck as a parent!

There were so many different signs for so many different activities I don't know how any of them was supposed to stand out more than the rest or how anyone was supposed to decide what to do. I see one that said "Learn about microchipping!" and that just seemed weird. Because all the signs I see are pertaining to children. So I'm thinking this is about putting microchips in your children.

So I asked, "They microchip them? Why do they microchip them?"

One person in the car replied, "That's in case they get lost. If someone finds them, they bring them in and they just run a scanner over them and they know who they belong to."

I say, "Ooookay. That's just extreme."

Then someone else says, "Or you know, like if they find them dead on the side of the road and some nice person scoops them up and brings them in then even though they're all squished up and all they can still identify them and send them home."

"What!? What the f-?! What?"

About this time everybody else in the car figured out I was a little slow and began patting my head and saying, "Now now, Scarescrow. It's all right. It's for little furry animals. Not children. It's okay. Calm down. Stop freaking. It's okay."

Warning: this gets a little twisted.
All I can say is Thank Shmoo they decided to let me off easy and immediately tell me it was about pets and not kids, rather than just have a field day messing with me. To this day I still have a mental image of a toddler road pizza being bagged by some kind passerby, who then drops it off at the local morgue. The coroner then scans it, reads the info, puts toddler-pizza into a bag, vaccuum seals it, pops it into a FedEx box, prints out a label, and sends it off. Then parents of said missing toddler-pizza open the box, transfer contents into the box their latest home computer came in, and bury it out in the back yard next to Scruffy, Bootsie, and Bobo. Blech!

Surprisingly I very rarely have nightmares and when I do, I write them down and share the stories with friends.