Make your problem a centerpiece

by Dana Williams

description
research

With jaw dropped and eyes bugged, a passerby gasps, "Oh, my!" A more controlled observer walks by with eyebrows askew, nervously wringing his hands. The crowd parts like the Red Sea for Moses' outstretched staff, giving you a wide berth. When you stop to ask for directions, everyone suddenly changes his/her route, leaving you stranded. You are not sick, yet everyone seems to believe you have a deadly contagious disease. For whatever reason, you are stuck with something ugly (a bad hair dye job, glasses that don't fit right, a mask you have to wear). So what do you do? You make it a centerpiece.

My grandmother once took a trip to the Galapagos Islands, and came back with an unexpected souvenir. While she was on the islands, her tour guide showed her group a rare mollusk found only on the islands. He gently rubbed it with a stick and the creature excreted a green foam that then turned purple. The tour guide told the group that the natives had used this foam to dye their hair for ceremonies, and offered to give them a little bit of purple in their hair. So my grandmother got a large portion of the front of her hair dyed purple. What she (and the rest of her group) didn't know was that the dye was permanent.

You know what sorts of looks teens who dye their hair green get. The factor of shock is multiplied by ten when it is a grandmother with purple hair. Most people looked as though they stuck their fingers into an electrical socket when they saw my grandmother. When trying to re-dye her hair didn't work, and cutting didn't get it all off, my grandmother decided she would play along with the purple hair. She wore bright purple outfits and purple earrings. Now she looked more like an artist who happened to like purple. The expressions of crowds changed from shock and disgust to smiles and thumbs ups. Of course, a few still looked with disapproval, but they didn't know the whole story anyway.

I know of a man who bought an old-fashioned house. It was gorgeous: hard wood floors, molding around the ceilings, even classic crystal doorknobs. It was everything he had dreamed of--except for the ugly cast-iron stove in the living room. It was a huge monster. It was dented from years of use, just plain tacky, and worse, it was the first thing you saw when you entered the room. They couldn't get rid of it because it was the home's only source of heat. So, instead of trying to cover it up, he painted bright red flames all the way up its pipes, and made a modern sculpture out of it. Now instead of a hideous monster, he had a conversation piece.

When I got back from the hospital, the doctors told me I would have to wear a mask every time I went out in public. I soon learned that if you wear a mask, people think you have the Plague. Sometimes I wondered if people realized just how rude they were being. I mean it's one thing to look at someone with a mask on and wrinkle your forehead briefly, and quite another to gawk for ten minutes with your mouth wide open. So, remembering the stories of my grandmother and the man with the ugly stove, I decided to play along with it. I created a costume out of the mask. I attached a nose, buck teeth, and whiskers to the mask, and wear a headband with bunny ears on it.

I have definitely noticed a different response. Some people smile. Some are shocked, but after they realize that there's a person under the mask, they usually smile, too. One little kid even said, "Look! Mommy, it's the Easter Bunny."

True, making your ugly thing a centerpiece won't completely eliminate negative public reaction. However, doing so will make it easier to handle, and at least you will know exactly why people are reacting the way they are.

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Questions? Brian McKinney (bmckinne@home.com)