El Dummo

I wanted to call this story "The Christmas Baboon" but when you read it you will see why I chose an alternate title.

El Dummo is a name I have given to myself to explain away those stupid, mindless moments that we are all familiar with. For example: driving away with your briefcase on the roof of the car, wearing two left handed gloves to shovel the driveway, leaving the yeast out when baking bread or making consistently bad plays at card games. Or how about emailing a picture of a squirrel with over-sized testicles to a sales client instead of a price quote? At our house these are affectionately known as "El Dummo" moments and we have all had them, some more than others - they make life interesting.

But just last week I had a an El Dummo moment to beat them all - and it involves a baboon in a tree. Well not an actual baboon, it just looks like a baboon to me; no one else can see it apparently, only me. I better explain....

Last year a house on the next street had some Christmas lights strung in a tree and (to me) they always appeared in the shape of a baboon. I knew it must have been an illusion like a stain on a wall or patterns in clouds - but I found this one particularly fascinating.

This year when people started decorating for Christmas I was astounded to see that once again our neighbour had somehow managed to string his lights up in the shape of yet another baboon. At first I was just confused but my confusion quickly turned to amazement! What were the odds? Of course when I excitedly told Julie about it she was unimpressed - having heard me go on about it all last year. She is used to these musings of mine and usually just lets them pass.

For several days I continued to be amazed at the return of this festive apparition. I was even starting to consider it some sort of Christmas miracle when I happened to drive by in the daylight and saw the strings of unlit bulbs in the tree in question. That was when it suddenly dawned on me that these were the same lights as last year, they just didn't take them down! It wasn't another baboon after all - it was the same baboon! This might not seem like much of a cognitive leap to you now, but at the time it was nothing short of a revelation - an "El Dummo" moment if there ever was one.

I guess I am relieved that the mystery has been partly solved but that doesn't change the fact that there is still a baboon in that tree. Don't just take my word for it either, drop by our house this season and see the Christmas baboon. And while you are at it, check out the one in the tree too.