August, 2004
Cashel (my nephew) sent my mother a birthday card. A home-made birthday card, with an envelope he filled out himself. Cashel (who is 6) wrote my parents address (in thick blue magic-marker) on lines drawn on by Cashel’s mother, obviously. To keep his crazily large handwriting in check. Most of the letters and numbers are backwards. And yet it still arrived!!! The return address, written on the back of the envelope, is also punctuated by backwards characters – and he has written his name thusly: CASH.
That’s it. No last name. It’s positively heart-crackingly hysterical.
But the card!!
Okay, so here’s what it is:
On the front of it is a spectacular Cashel drawing. When I first saw it, all I could do was fall into silence, contemplating the image: It’s obviously a banana, coming out of its peel. The 2 sides of the banana peel are curling down, as though they are arms – about to be placed on the banana’s hips. This is all very apparent. The banana itself, emerging from the peel, is obviously in profile – The banana is looking to the side, and he is wearing purple sunglasses (seen in profile. Cashel’s very good at perspective like that – you can see the side of the glasses hooked around the banana’s “ear”). It’s quite a pose. Yellow arms curling down to the sides, banana-head in profile, staring off at some indeterminate horizon, purple sunglasses cockily in place.
This is my mother’s birthday card.
But then, you open it up – and there is Cashel’s handwriting, sprawled across the inside. Does he say, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRANDMA”? No. There is no mention of “birthday”, there is no “happy”, there is no “love, Cashel”, there is no “dear Grandma”.
All it says on the inside of the card is this:
THE BANNANA SRGT. IS SAYING HE’S TOUGH.
Heh heh heh heh
We could not stop saying this phrase over the weekend. “Hey, listen. Don’t argue. The banana sergeant is saying he’s tough, and that’s final.”
Of course, once you read the inside, you then have to flip back and stare at the drawing again. Only then do you realize that yes, indeed, THAT is what is happening with that banana. I would not have realized that the banana was a “sergeant”, but I could tell quite clearly that he was a tough-guy. The banana arms coming down, the cocky profile, the sunglasses – of course! The banana srgt. (love the abbreviation) is “saying he’s tough”.
WHAT?
