Invite an invisible
person to live at your house!
One day at our house, we had just watched one of Jim Varney’s “Earnest” slapstick comedy movies.
I went to get a snack out of the pantry and found an empty box that had been put back in the pantry. Sort
of on autopilot I said, “Now who put an empty box back in the pantry?” Then, as I realized
that was one of those kind of silly questions to which everyone in unison says, “Not me,” I just answered my own
question and I said, “I know. It was Vernon! Vernon did it!” Vernon is the
character in the Jim Varney “Ernest” movies that Ernest always talks to. Ernest carries on
long monologue conversations with Vernon, but you never see Vernon, so you really know that Ernest is not talking to a real
person.
When I said, “Vernon did it” everyone started laughing and instead of me getting irritated, we
spent the next several minutes laughing and saying funny things about all the ornery things that Vernon does.
You know, Vernon is the one who stuffs dirty socks under the seat cushions and puts empty orange juice cartons back
in the refrigerator.
From that day on, we invited Vernon to live at our house. Vernon is the comic fall guy
for small things that make people angry, even though it does not help to argue over who really did it. We
don’t blame Vernon for anything big, like if someone badly dented a car or broke something valuable. However,
when placing blame and pointing fingers really would not help any, Vernon is always handy to take the blame. The
person who was about to get angry then starts to laugh. It may be that we do need to have a serious discussion
about whatever the problem was, but you can’t really have a helpful conversation about anything if you are too angry.
It is better to find a way to calm down and then have the conversation.
Sometimes we even use this as an opportunity to make up
more fun stories about mischievous things that Vernon was probably doing in our house while we were all at work and school.
If dirty clothes were dragged out of the clothesbasket into the living room (really, it was not the dog : )) then Vernon
did it. I will ask the kids to please be more careful to not leave the dirty clothesbasket out, but it
is not important enough to get angry over.
You can invite your own imaginary person to live at your house for this purpose.
It can be a cartoon or movie character, aliens (in a fun way that does not scare children), a comical animal, or anything
else. The point is that you divert what could have been a pointless argument off to some comic relief.
It is now sometimes part of our fun dinner conversations to make up elaborate stories about Vernon (and Sheila, but
that’s another story : )) Laughter often is the best medicine!
