Image via Wikipedia
One of my all time favorite movies is The Princess Bride. I am not going to summarize it here, but you should watch it if you haven’t. If you have seen it, watch it again. It is fantastic. Anyway, in the movie there is a hidden torture chamber that the albino calls the “Pit of Despairrrrrrrrr” (clears throat) “The Pit of Despair”. In this pit the hero is tortured and this that and the other happens.
Now, keep that in mind while I tell you this story. Long time readers of this blog know that my family has undergone some stress in recent years. A daughter on dialysis, a kidney transplant, a new baby, a new home. Well all of this has taken it’s toll on my kids. They have taken it very very well but sometimes things come out that we know is stress related. We took my oldest son to a counselor to just talk a bit about his feelings.
One of the suggestions that she had for helping him to deal with everything was to pretend to blow up a balloon whenever he was feeling stressed and just let it go. It worked. Now we try to get him to blow up balloons when he has too much energy, or is sad, or is mad. Well, today he was sad. Some things happened and at the end of it I yelled at him. The reason is not important.
At bedtime we sit as a family and discuss the day. This is when I found out that he and my daughter had both blew up several sad balloons, mad balloons and left them on my desk. So now I have dubbed my desk the Pit of Despair. And it will be the pit of despair from now on. Life choices made from this chair of torture, dealings with the world right here from the Pit. It is kind of fun, and a bit cool to have the pit available.
We name boats, houses, manors and now my desk. So I ask you good readers, what unusual things do you have names for that are either ironic, silly or fitting? I want to hear some of these. I will post a list of my favorites in the next couple of days. Go on! Comment!
As you wish, kids, as you wish.
-Justin
