plinkosophy.

A coupla days ago, i got a letter from children international updating me on the south american teen ive been sponsoring for a few years (it costs $22 a month, in case you're interested), and i immediately thought of the most delicious ham and swiss sandwiches ive ever had.

let me explain. (as if youre going anywhere.)

ive copied the letter below. click on the image to enlarge it - itll pop up in a new window! - and take note of the highlighted lines.

see, i had known the girl was poor, but these statistics - which i assume i had seen before but not paid much attention to - really crystallized how dire her situation is. it made me think of my plinkosophy of life.

when i was a kid, and i got sick and had to stay home from school, my parents would bring me to my grandparents' house, so the retirees could watch/tend to me for the day. man, those were some of the best days of childhood. essentially, they consisted of me spending the whole day watching game shows and hanging with my grandmother, whom i called toto - dont ask me why.

anyway, my favorite game show was - and i know im not alone here - the price is right. for one thing, it had the best prizes and the most fun games, and for another, it was an hour long. it was like game show heaven.

it came on at 11 am, and when the noon hour drew near, id always grow a little sad, b/c the afternoon meant the end of the game shows i so loved, and the beginning of the soap operas i was so bored by. (ie, afternoon was intermittent nap time.)

but around the 11.50 am mark, toto would always come in with my favorite lunch (old people do everything a little early, right?) - ham and swiss, with lettuce and tomato, on perfectly toasted rye bread with mustard, and a root beer. shed prepare the same for herself, and shed sit down with me in front of the tv she didnt much care for, and wed watch the end of the show together. just one of those golden memories you never forget. (as opposed to the memories you do forget.) and so i always associate the price is right with those sandwiches.

anyhoo - so why did that children's international update make me think of the ham and swiss?

b/c here's the thing. perhaps the best game on the price is right was/is plinko. im just gonna copy wikipedia's explanation of the game:

the contestant takes chips they have earned up a set of stairs to the top of the Plinko board. The board is made up of a field of pegs, with each row offset from the previous row. At the bottom of the board are nine slots marked symmetrically with the values (from outside to the single centre slot) $100, $500, $1,000, $0, $10,000.

One at a time, the contestant lays each Plinko chip against the top of the board and releases it to drop down the board. The chips bounce randomly off the pegs, making it virtually impossible to predict where the chips will land. In addition, the sides of the board are in a zig-zag pattern which also allows the chips to ricochet back to the center more quickly. The contestant wins whatever money corresponds with the slot the chip lands in, with a running total kept on a scoreboard next to the Plinko board.

it seemed like the chips tended to land in the lower-money slots much more than the higher-money ones (this was obv. by design). so it was always thrilling when a chip found purchase with some big numbers.

later on in my life, when i began to start thinking metaphysically and existentially and philisophically and whatnot, i came to see plinko as a metaphor for babies being born into the world.

it's like all the life forces that are about to be born into the world are plinko chips. everyday, there are thousands of them - and so this plinko board is huge. but not only is this board bigger than the one on the game show; it is built to give the chips way worse odds. there are thousands of slots for 'born into a poor family in africa,' thousands for 'born with some sort of chronic illness,' thousands for 'born in new jersey' - you get the picture. there are only a handful of slots for 'born healthy and relatively taken care of financially in a country like the u.s.'

ill never forget something the rabbi said at nick's funeral. he said 'we dont choose when we come into this world, and we dont choose when we leave.'

well, we dont choose where we come into this world, either. it's up to the great plinko board. that's my plinkosophy.

that teen i sponsor - she fell into one of the thousands of disadvantaged slots - through no fault of her own. and that's what i thought of when i read those stats two days ago. and that's why i thought of ham and swiss sandwiches, on perfectly toasted rye bread.

anyone reading this blog fell into one of the handful of jackpot slots. personally, my chip struck it really really big. the older i get, the more i appreciate how lucky i truly am.

ps - this post is dedicated to j.go, with whom i had a heart-to-heart last night, in which she explained to me how i sometimes act too much like a lucky plinko chip as an adult. this was very elucidating, and i thank her - and love her - for it.