Plastic
December 31, 2017
Baby boomers and movie buffs recognize the iconic line of dialogue delivered in a single word to the befuddled Ben Braddock in The Graduate – Plastics. Putting aside the underlying theme the movie as a statement of the hippie rebellion against everything fake and artificial about middle class life, the character Mr. McGuire’s advice was right. Plastic has changed our lives. Three of my personal plastic favorites are the pot scraper, zip lock bags and Velcro, which is second only to duct tape in the problem solving department.
Ben Braddock might have had a nice career discovering how plastic could add quality and durability to children’s toys. Every cartoon has a set of characters, a home, a wardrobe and at least one mode of transportation, all made out of plastic. The transformers of the 1980’s were a plastic phenomenon that changed from car to robot in the hands of a child. Transformers mutated into several generations including a Star Wars characters, Marvel Comic heroes and Disney’s Buzz Lightyear. It also transfigured into animated movies and a cereal. The Transformer cereal-which was not plastic-had the power to change ordinary milk into chocolate milk. Our nostalgia crazed world labels the remaining boxes of Transformer cereal as a collectible, according to Wikipedia one box sold for $349 on Ebay.
My two-year-old grandson Benjamin, who is never called Ben by his mother and I is called Ben-min by his dad and sisters. Sometimes one less syllable is the ultimate display of affection. Our Benjamin was not confused or conflicted like Ben Braddock when he discovered a toy guitar that was bought for sister Laney, now six years old buried in the bottom of the toy palace. Daddy replaced the batteries. Benjamin fell for the older woman, Dora the Explorer seducing him with her exercise song.
Twist your body all round.
Twist, twist
Now move your arms up and down
Up and down
We did it
We did it!
Two-year-old Benjamin shows far more enthusiasm than the deadpan Ben Braddock. His sisters join him in the happy dance and have shown him how to manipulate the guitar buttons to replay the little ditty over and over and over again. Every time the song plays he rushes to announce: We did it!
The repetition of this little ditty proves the durability of plastics and the horror of an inescapable earworm. One can’t help sarcastically quoting his love, Dora, fantastica! It is the first toy he looks for each morning. It travels in the car to daycare singing over Kidz Bop radio station. For those unfamiliar with this children’s genre, Kidz Bop is a brand that homogenizes the explicit or suggestive lyrics of popular songs. It proves that things could always be worse. The guitar stays in the car until he picked up from daycare and strapped back into his car seat.
That’s when I start praying for his bedtime to come quicker. Maybe Christmas will produce a replacement, a silent one.
As Benjamin screeches, We did it, for the umpteenth time. I think of my Benjamin and the Dora guitar and the church scene of the Graduate.
My head is pounding from the constant repetition of Benjamin exuberant enthusiasm for Dora’s requests but my please stop it stays in my head.
There are those moments when his mother will holler BENJAMIN, placing equal emphasis on every single syllable. The Graduate has a non-ending with Ben and Elaine riding in the back of the bus. Our version has a similar non-ending with Benjamin and Dora being separated for naptime.