How Grover Taught Me to Appreciate My Elbows

I like naming my things.

I don’t know when it started, but let’s try to trace it back, shall we?

Like most children, my stuffed animals, dolls, and action figures all had personalities, names, feelings and a favourite side of the bed.

But, I think I went a little further than the average child. At least this is what my friends and family have led me to believe. Or maybe they just enjoy watching my neurosis act itself out. It’s like watching the exact opposite of Steven Wright on catnip, fertilised with speed, laced with the mysterious fairy dust the Gilmore Girls’ producers sprinkled in the set’s communal coffee pot.

But I digress.

When I was a child, my things didn’t need to have beads as eyes for me to give them a name, an identity, or a “good morning how did you sleep?”

My pencils (Rosey, Orangina and Blacky McBlack Black), my shoes (Sandalina, Runny and Tipsydoodle), my hair scruntchies (Schrunchalina, Schrunchette and Schruncharoon), were as personable as Barbie, Mr. Bear and Polly Pocket.

So my stuff had names, birthdays, favourite colours and phobias. My pencils all had personalities of their own: Orangina was funny, Rosey was shy, and Blacky… well… Blacky was a prick. Also, my patent black shoes had a debilitating fear of tuna. Not me though. Just the shoes. However, I do always think twice before trusting the word of a tuna melt.

As I discovered the objects around me has quirks, I began to feel attached to them. For example, I felt bad when I had to pick one shoe from the other (a sign of things to come?) … unless they pinched me, then they had it coming.

Or there was the day I forgot my backpack at school: I came home crying because I couldn’t imagine her having to spend the night alone.

I’m going to go ahead and blame television for my unnatural desire to name things and my constant need to please inanimate objects… what was that Mr. Thomas the Tape Dispenser? You say you’re feeling a little breezy in that corner?

It may have started when Grover asked me through the television set one day, “Have you said hello to your elbow today?”

That’s right. Jim Henson made us talk to our elbows. The 80s were a hell of a decade.

So I thought to myself, “Well, no… I haven’t!” So I bent my arm and said, “Hi Tim.” Then I bent my other arm, “Hi Earl.” Then, I saw this.



THE DUDE LOST HIS ELBOWS.

And come to think of it, half the time, Grover doesn’t have any elbows!

Now, not only do I name my belongings, I check inventory of my elbows and other extremities regularly.

This includes the bendy bit on the other side of both my elbows, Tom and Pearl, and both sides of each knee, Eric, Camille, John and Abdul. My dad was watching a TV special on the Middle East that night. That same night I named my right pinky toe, the one next to Jeremy, Samir.

And so, my stapler is Steve, my monitor is Helga, my mouse is Jimmy and my scissors, Billy. I’m not allowed leaving Steve and Billy together or they conspire to take down Patrick, the Post-It pad.

And finally, for those of you who are wondering: Righty McBoob and Lefty McGee.