By the week after New Year’s, I had just about all I could take of myself. Even my Lady Wonder Wench was giving me hints, like, “Hey knock it
off…don’t growl at me.” I was so grouchy, I caught myself getting ready to kick our dog. And we don’t have one. So I was growling around
because we don’t have a dog. I’ve been getting that way more often since I’ve become “a little more mature,” and I don’t like it. So that’s why I’m
on this “don’t let the dumb stuff get you down” kick. I don’t want to become a cynic. Cynics suck. And I’m not going to become a sucker. Of
course, as with everything I do, I’ve been over doing it a bit, I guess.Â
So, predictably, my buddies are all giving me a hard time…’cause that’s what buddies do. My pal Al is calling me the Crayola Man…he says I’ve
stopped being realistic since I’ve been on my “cynics suck” kick. He claims that lately I have been reminding him of a little kid happily playing
with his crayons instead of paying attention to the fact that the world is about to end, our taxes are sure to go up, and radio as we know it is
dead because of ipods.
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Well, let “Crayola Man” tell you a true story about Crayolas. As some of you know, I do television commercials. A few years ago, I won an audition
to do some commercials for Crayola crayons. I showed up at the studio, grabbed my cup of coffee, went into the booth, and I asked the producer
for the script. He said, just say Crayola Crayons a few times. I figured he was doing a sound check, so I said Crayola Crayons a few times…then I
said, ok guys where’s the script. He said, “that’s a wrap.” I said, what are you talking about. He said, “that’s it. We just needed a tag.” A tag is
what you call a very short statement at the end of a commercial. They put that tag on the end of five national commercials and ran it for three
years. It earned me almost six figures in residuals before they killed those spots. So I have fond feelings for Crayola crayons.
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And besides that, I like the fact that crayons have a kid smell about them…like chalk has…and sliced apples and peanut butter. I liked being a kid.
And I’ve always liked apples, peanut butter and strawberry jam, oatmeal and raisins…and I have them every day now for breakfast AND lunch…
because I’m an adult and I can eat like a kid if I want.
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I also like the feel and smell of crayons. They give them to kids to keep them quiet at Applebee’s…and when we go in there, I usually grab some
for myself. I tell the waiter it’s for “my little guys.” Which is not a lie…I sometimes call my fingers “my little guys,” because like most little guys
they get into trouble fairly regularly. It’s not my fault what they do while the guy who’s supposed to be in charge isn’t watching. They’re like my
eyebrows. I always wanted to say things to girls like the Big Bopper used to say…hellooo baaaybe. But I can’t get away with it, because the little
guy sitting in the back of my head who’s supposed to keep things under control always runs to see who I’m talking to when it’s a pretty girl, and
while he’s gone, my eyebrows flip up and down a couple of times, which makes my Lady Wonder Wench giggle…instead of looking at me
adoringly …like Bergman looked at Bogart in Casablanca. Same kind of thing happens with my fingers.
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Crayolas are made in Pennsylvania, by the Binney Company. They make around 3 billion of them a year, so little kids all over the world can make
refrigerator art with them. That’s been going on since the 1930s. So you figure all of today’s big shots must have played with them when they
were kids. Bush, the Pope, the Ayatollah … even that nut case in Iran who’s name I can’t say…all of them did it. Can’t you just see them all…little
kids…sticking their tongues out…scribbling like mad… concentrating on their coloring books…then all running over to their mommies…happy
and excited about drawing a tree that you can kind of recognize.
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Beats what they’re up to these days.
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Maybe we should have a Crayola rocket. When things get tense, we’d launch it with a payload of millions of crayons…the thing would explode
high up in the air, and millions of crayon boxes would float down under little parachutes…and everybody would chuck their guns, run out and
grab some crayons, stick their tongues out and start scribbling.
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Then while the bad guys are in kid mode, maybe we could deal with them like kids would do. We could take them out to play hide and seek and
then just sneak away. Especially that North Korean guy.
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There was always one kid who was so good at hiding, nobody could find him…even after the game was over and all the other kids went home.
Johnny T was that kid in our neighborhood. He hid so well one day, nobody has seen him since the third grade. When it got to be the North
Korean guy’s turn to hide, we could just tip toe away and let him keep hiding for a few years.
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Com’on…I know it’s childish. But give Crayola Man a little giggle. Giggles are good…except when caused by out of control eyebrows, or “little
 guys” that your girlfriend says are “too cold.”
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Dick’s Details: (The answers are all in the current PodProgram at www.dicksummer.com
1- What do some Americans seem to do with the ton and a half of food they eat each year ?
2- What’s different about some politicians’ brains ?
3- What’s strange about 75% of American women’s bras ?
Scoring:
3 right – Brain surgeon.
2 right – Airline pilot.
1 right – Talk show host.
0 right – Disc jockey.
So, what have we learned ?
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1- No matter how accurately you kick your dog, your wife won’t award you an extra point.
2- Guys cannot be held entirely responsible for their eye brows or their “little guy’s” actions when a pretty girl is around.
3- Realism is not the same thing as cynicism.
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Would love to hear from you – Email – dick@dicksummer.com – or just post a comment below. I read em all.