In Praise of the Absurd

On my way to the gym the other day, I passed a flyer stapled to a telephone pole - one of those little posters with the tear-off phone number fringe on the bottom. Ever-curious, I stopped briefly to see if I should tear off a phone number and put it in my wallet alongside all the other tear-off numbers that if I would just call, would allow me to begin my Buddhist meditation practice, continue with my yoga postures and stop smoking through hypnosis (okay, not the last one).

This poster was offering classes in levitation. I looked again, sure I must have misread it. Nope, levitation. Call the number and you, too can be well on your way to floating serenely, cross-legged, just a few inches off the ground.

This levitation poster was the first in a string of stories I have noticed lately that are wonderfully absurd. Elizabeth Renzetti wrote in Saturday’s Globe and Mail last week about her new favourite headline, courtesy of The Scottish Daily Record that reported on civilians who tried to subdue the man who drove a burning car into Glasgow’s airport: Hero Cabbie: I Kicked Burning Terrorist So Hard In Balls That I Tore a Tendon.

Today’s Globe and Mail provided two offbeat stories. The first transcribing a 911 phonecall at 3am in Newmarket:

Caller: "Hi. Umm ... We've found an elephant walking down the street near the community centre, the Ray Twinney."

Operator: "Sorry?"

Caller: "We've found an elephant walking down the street. Like the ones from, like, the circus at the Ray Twinney centre. One of them got loose and it's walking down the street."

For the next few minutes, the caller explains that there are, in fact, at least two fully grown, trainer-less elephants milling about.

The second affirms what I’ve been saying for decades: the fashion of wearing underwear increases literacy rates.