Hi boys and girls, it's the husband again. Mary Anne is busy on other writing. I don't know how she manages to generate so many words, but I do have to deal with the strain it puts on her wrists. "Honey, rub my arms again." Yes dear. Rubbing her arms is a labor of love, much like the labor she puts into her books.
So please allow me to regale you with a tale of an epiphany I had a few days ago.
I was talking with our youngest boy (who loves to talk - not converse, mind you, but talk, as in making noise with his mouth) and I was at my old man best. I was telling him about things he'd never seen in regards to the extended family, because we haven't visited a lot of them.
One of the phenomena he'd never encountered was the "other" living room. I know this is a widespread thing, because I've heard comedians do entire routines on it, and they get laughs every time they talk about it. You don't make people laugh by telling them things they can't relate to.
I've had a few relatives, usually little old aunts, with two living rooms in their houses. One was the "real" living room, where everybody was welcome and would sit and drink coffee, shoot the breeze, and watch TV.
The "other" living room is cordoned off from everybody. It's the one where the sofa and all the upholstered chairs are wrapped tight in that weird bumpy see-through vinyl, all the tables are polished to a high gloss, the rugs have fringe that is straightened and parallel, and all the lamps have lace doilies underneath them.
Children, especially small children, are never, ever welcome in the other living room. This makes the other living room extremely enticing to children old enough to understand it is somehow forbidden. But as years wear on, the kids understand they can't go in because Aunt Fussypants will tell her sister (their mother) and they will get their behinds popped and their toys taken away for an indeterminate amount of time.
But then something strange happens. A close family member dies, maybe Uncle Laughloud or Grandpa Gotcandy, and a bunch of people descend on Aunt Fussypants' house. She opens up the other living room, where all the adults who enter there sit unnaturally straight and constantly hold onto their small children so they won't hurt the delicate order of the room.
So if you're one of those children, you find out the forbidden room is strangely pretty, but it's cold and you can't play and you end up going to the real living room to have real fun.
And after everybody leaves, Aunt Fussypants meticulously puts everything back in order and spends lots of time dusting all of the bric-a-brac and knicknacks in the room every week.
Until Aunt Fussypants passes away, at which point the other living room is used for her, and the room's furniture and decorations are sold or taken away by her relatives. All of the vinyl is removed from the chairs, the tables get smudged with fingerprints, the rug fringe gets all crooked when they're rolled up, and the doilies get too dusty to be salvaged and are thrown away.
While I told my youngest boy of this phenomenon, it struck me. Perfection truly is the enemy of good in that scenario. Aunt Fussypants created the perfect room - the other living room - but it was never truly enjoyed. It became associated with cold air, death, and somberness, instead of warmth, life, and laughter.
Anytime we try to create the perfect situation and insist that anything short of that perfection is unacceptable, we become Aunt Fussypants. We become somebody obsessed with an unobtainable goal and make a lot of people miserable. Worst of all, we waste a portion of our lives that could be opened up to others to enjoy.
Just like the other living room.