I’m not sure what’s in the water lately, but tides are changing. People in my life are doing things I never thought they’d do. Marriages for confirmed bachelors, pregnancies for couples who had long espoused the benefits of never having children, new websites, new businesses—hell, even the Bruins winning the Cup is a major shift in the team’s trajectory.
Have you seen the movie, Waiting, with Ryan Reynolds and Justin Long? They work at a Bennigans-style chain restaurant. The movie takes place over one day at work. It’s pretty awful, but it grows on you, especially if you leave Comedy Central on to keep you company while you catch up on some sketches and administrative work and they play the stupid movie four times in one weekend.
Justin “I’m a Mac” Long’s character is trying to decide if he should take an assistant manager position at the restaurant and he gets some spiritual guidance from dishwasher, Chi McBride. Chi explains to Justin how only a few years ago the restaurant was in a downward spiral until Luis Guzman’s character, Radimus, invented the “Penis Showing Game”. Employees started having more fun at work, morale improved, the customers came back, tips went up, it was a spiral of success. Chi tells Justin that when life is not working for you, when you’re in a rut, you need to invent your own “Penis Showing Game,” figuratively, of course.
I look around and I see all these new “Penis Showing Games,” again, figuratively. I’m seeing happy newlyweds, intelligent women with new-found purpose, proud future parents. It’s like the stale, humid air got blown away with a salty, summer breeze. It makes me want to look at my life and identify the ruts and do things differently. If the tides are changing, now would be a good time to polish up my board and paddle out. I wouldn’t want to miss the wave of a lifetime.