May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor

Ha! I just mixed my book references! By which I mean I’m going to, and then I will have.

So. The thing that has been sitting in my brain for the past as-long-as-it’s-been-there is breaking some important news to my mom. At first the Important Thing I was considering divulging was that if you drink enough purple Kool-Aid—like seriously massive quantities, as in to-be-measured-in-liters-rather-than-thimblefulls immense—your urine will turn green. And, conveniently, given the insane amount of liquid you’ve just consumed, there will be a lot of it. And it will be very, very green. Unless of course you opt for the highly-concentrated option and eat the powder mix directly with a spoon like brown sugar (People do that right? Eat straight brown sugar out of the cute little brown-sugar-holder that goes in between the flour tub and the salt tub? A very sanitary practice, don’t you agree?), in which case you will have very little urine to excrete, but what you do have will be even more vibrantly green. It’s a trade-off, so each person just has to use their own discretion.

But no, I decided that this Thing would never do for telling. My second option was more with the lending-itself-to-being-dramatic, but not so much with the being hyphenatable—which is a very important quality to me, even in spoken speech wherein the hyphenation is not immediately obvious, especially to an illiterate housesmith such as my mother—and so I dismissed it offhand.

At this point I was scrambling for a suitably important Important Thing, and starting to panic a little bit that I might not be able to conjure something adequate in time. But then it hit me: Duh, Bailey, you’ve got issues; go with that.

So then I had a secret all picked out; my attention shifted to delivery.

Here’s what I came up with.

Step one: Apply generous amounts of Harry Potter. Or just page 187 of Book the Third (“third” being a word that used to be “thrid” but has since evolved through the process of metathasis—you don’t need to know this for the test at the end of this post*, but it will be important for Life Knowledge, at some point). If you have memorized this page, you may proceed to my outlining of step two. If you have not, or if you would like a refresher, you may go to the library and check out their copy of the book, hope that no one has stolen page 187, and read it yourself. Hopefully you are not illiterate as is my mother. If this is the case, get someone to check out the book for you, have them read the passage, and then ask them to draw you a picture to illustrate.

Step two: Interpret said reference as follows:

Harry asks Lupin why the dementors affect him so, to which Lupin replies “It has nothing to do with weakness….The dementors affect you worse than the others because there are horrors in your past that the others don’t have” (HP3, 187). Interpretation: “Look, Mom, I have this weakness for girls. Well, I mean, it’s not really a weakness  per se, because that’s just silly. It’s more of a strength, I would say, like being paralyzed in the face of hooded essence-of-fear. You know? And if you think about it, it’s not even really my fault. Actually it is: I must have been very unrighteous in the premortal life and this is my punishment. You may think it’s harsh but this is what I deserve after all that sitting in the back of God-class sniggering with my delinquent friends and eating peanuts extra loudly to disrupt the more diligent angels. Not everyone did that, so not everyone is gay. Which is probably a good thing because otherwise how would the species survive? So, are you all clear on where gay** babies come from? Good. Moving one then.”

Lupin says “Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them….Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself…soulless and evil. You’re left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life” then tells Harry that he has nothing to be ashamed of (HP3, 187… Honestly, have you not gotten the picture by now?! It’s on page 187! Sheesh). Interpretation: “So Mom. Let me give you some more details on this whole gay thing. First of all, we’re basically not even human. I’d call us curs or something, but that would be an insult to the curs of the world. I would also call us dementors, but that is too cliché and so overdone; honestly, not original at all. We go where no one else will go, like into fox holes underground. They’re kind of small so usually a pretty tight fit, but hey, someone’s got to do it. Being all crammed in there, we actually end up displacing the peace and hope and happiness and goodness. As well as the baby foxes, which is truly a shame. When we’re not in fox holes, we sometimes like to mingle with the real people, but they don’t usually like that very much because we steal away the sanctity of their marriage*** and such, selfish jerks that we are. Sometimes we also steal babies, but I don’t see how that’s relevant so I’m not even going to bring it up. The other main result of our existence is Corrupting the Youth. Seriously, I’m considering having my name legally changed to Socrates, what with all this youth-corrupting going all. Actually I’d like to start a campaign to get everyone to do that; it’ll be like a world-wide George Foreman phenomenon. I’m very excited. Think of all the children we could turn gay! Soulless and Evil, that can be our motto; I’d like a flag of it, at least, and preferably T-shirts. Or maybe tattered black ethereal robes. Then people will have a mental image to pair with the worst experience of their lives if they’re ever unlucky enough to cross paths with one of us.”

Lupin tells Harry that “The fortress [Azkaban] is set on a tiny island, way out to sea, but they don’t need walls and water to keep the prisoners in, not when they’re all trapped inside their own heads, incapable of a single cheerful thought. Most of them go mad within weeks” (Were you not listening at the last citation! It’s page one eighty-sev—oh, actually this one is on 188. My apologies). Interpretation: “Um, I’m not sure how this is applicable. But it’s a powerful image, don’t you think? Yeah….”

Step three: Dismiss offhand any confusion as to how gay people can be both innocent young Harry and the demented dementors. The metaphor is sound. Trust me. If you don’t understand it, you’re thinking too hard. Or not enough. If t his is the case, go read Goldilocks to get your bearings and reset your level of thinking to just right, then get back to me.

Step four: Repeat as often as necessary. It’s a complicated analogy, so just keep explaining it until it makes sense or everyone’s brains melt.

And voila! Important news broken; check. Bam! Be impressed.

*There is no test at the end of this post. There is also no monster at the end of this book. Oops, I’m going to insert a retroactive spoiler alert here. And also point out that this is yet another book reference; I’m pretty proud of myself for getting in four separate ones in one post.

**In my head I use the term gay to generally encompass LGBT stuff.

***Okay, I didn’t have another asterisk-worthy comment; I just wanted to see if you would scroll down to the end a third time. Sucker.