Creationisn't

I spent a lot of my college time jotting down ideas that popped into my head. Sometimes it was just a phrase that I wanted to work into a poem for one of my classes, other times it would be a larger, thematic note about something I'd like to write. It was either 96 or 97 that two of these larger ideas came to me, and I sat on them until I had the time to act.

My plan was simple: each idea would make a great one-act play that would appear on the surface to simply be a parody, but in actuality, it would be allegorical and full of social commentary. I told my friends about these, and even started coming up with character names and a few lines of dialogue. Then I forgot about them. The "time to act" never presented itself, because I've learned that time doesn't do that on its own.

But then it did. I was working in Sacramento for a year, doing the most menial tasks you can imagine (filing thousands of papers in zip code order, etc.), and I suddenly had time. Most of my day was spent "looking busy," and I could easily accomplish that by writing. I wrote down all of the character names I remembered, cracked my knuckles, and was set to jump back in to the writing game. My final course of action was to do a quick Google search to make sure no one else had already written my masterpieces. Oops. Not only was I too late on both of them, but too late several times over. Here are my ideas and what I found:

1. "Omelet, Prince of Kenmore" In this one act play taking place inside a refrigerator, Omelet's father was just killed. His uncle Benedict has poached his mother (and the throne), and everyone is trying to find out if Omelet is sane or if he has cracked. His ladyfriend Florentine eventually gets so scrambled that she hurls herself into the icemaker and perishes. Line that brings down the house: (Sniff sniff) "There's something rotten in the state of Kenmore."

I had much more laid out, but that's the gist of it. A quick Google search shows me not only Sesame Street's "Omelet, Prince of Dinner" but also "Omelet, Prince of Denny's. A Tragedy in Two Cracks. By Francis Bacon." I don't mind the fact that Sesame Street beat me to the punch on this, but Denny's kinda hurts. So, that one was out. It's a shame too, because despite the bad puns and ridiculous nature of it, I really felt like I could do something with it.

2. "A Pair of Dice Lost" Newlyweds Buzz and Sally are in Las Vegas for their honeymoon. It was a surprise trip furnished by Buzz's dad, who dropped them off and will return at an undisclosed date to pick them up. They're small-town kids who are honest, hard-working people. Strolling through the casino (awesome set design, by the way), the craps dealer named Lou stops them. He explains how to play and offers to help them out on when and how to bet. After a couple of wins, they're riding high on the dangerous combination of victory and apple-tinis. The wheels fall off, and this tragedy ends with the couple penniless, roomless, and waiting for the father to bring them back home.

Here's the problem: a Google search of "pair of dice lost" pulls up 948,000 results. Baby Looney Tunes has an episode called "Pair o' Dice Lost," a retirement convention had a session called that, and many, many others have used that before me. In fact, one brilliantly juxtaposed "Paradise Lost by Milton" with "A Pair of Dice Lost by Milton Bradley." I realize I could abandon the play on words for the title and write it otherwise, but to me that loses too big a part of it.

So, my advice to all (especially to myself) is to do stuff when you think of it. You'd better believe I'll act faster than 7 or 8 years next time.

While we're on the topic of coming up with things, I think this is a good time to mention that my friend Dave says he created the term "No duh." Everyone else was just using "duh," he says, and he introduced the world to putting "no" in front of it but keeping the meaning the same. What can I say, he's a pioneer. And an idiot.

Have a very happy and safe New Year's Eve, gentle readers.