Imagine a droopy, blue-eyed puppy sitting on top of a small pedestal that reads, "World's Best Boss." It's a rather ugly piggy-bank, really. I can't remember when or where I acquired it. As far as I can remember, I've always had it in my bedroom. Many things have changed over the years, but this little pup has remained on his little pedestal carrying what little change I've entrusted to his care.
On the surface, there's not much to this puppy-bank. It's vibrantly colored (mostly grays and browns, except for a red nose and piercing blue eyes), the slot for coins is in the back of the poor canine's head, the base is a small red pedestal with just enough height and width for the few character's etched on it, and there's a small, worn-out rubber plug underneath held in place by masking tape that has lost its adhesive integrity over the past 29+ years.
As I look at this small puppy-bank and study its features, I'm reminded of a rich and vibrant history.
First, there's the ugliness. I cannot remember where, when, or how I acquired this precious toy, and I'm not sure what would possess someone to see this in a store and venture to buy it for a young child. It's blatantly ugly. The color palette, the puppy's expression, the nonsensical words at the base, and the dog breed all scream, Get this thing away from me! There's really nothing endearing about the toy. And yet, I love it and I am closely attached to it.
Out of all the toys from my childhood, it is the only one that has stood the test of time. The rest have either been discarded or packed away for safe keeping in a cold, bleak crawl space. For some reason, this one, ugly toy remains where it has always been: on my dresser.
It's peculiar how much emphasis we place on beauty. But what is beauty? Is there an absolute value to beauty? Is there a sure-fire formula to calculate an object's beauty? Or is it all in the eye of the beholder? Is nothing inherently beautiful and we place a label on it after enough consensus or is everything inherently beautiful but few of us are wise enough to see and understand it? Is beauty always subjective, or is there some objectivity to what is beautiful?
Good questions, but my puppy-bank doesn't really help answer any of them. All I know is that it's ugly, but that's what makes it beautiful. It's beauty is in the small details, the nuances, the writing between the lines, and the irony of it all. Of all the toys I played with as a child, of all the games that enticed me as a young boy, I played with this one the least, but now it remains as the only toy I cherish and admire above the rest.
Secondly, there's the words on the bottom that make no sense. World's Best Boss. What does a droopy-eyed puppy-bank have in common with the words? It almost seems as if the toy was produced overseas in a foreign country and the phrase was lost in translation. However, there is something to be learned by these words. They provide a strange symbolism that isn't lost on me now that I've grown up.
Labels and titles are a poor and nonsensical way to evaluate something. There's something about the power of words that cause us to twist, squeeze, and manipulate things and people to fit the labels rather than the other way around. Words can sometimes define us, rather than us defining words. It's a puppy-bank, but since the words underneath read, World's Best Boss, I try to twist, contort, and modify my perception to fit the label. Perhaps the label is just wrong. Perhaps the word's have nothing to do with the object, but rather, they're just there randomly.
Finally, there's the worn-out plug at the bottom. The rubber stopper probably was practically air-tight when the bank was new. But after years and years of a little boy entrusting his treasures and then retrieving them humanely time and time again, the plug slowly lost it's rigour. Masking tape came along to reinforce the plug, but even that has lost it's integrity over the years, and slightly lifting the bank off of the dresser results in a digestive removal of the sappy puppy's contents.
Piggy banks probably once taught little boys about commitment, but this toy taught me more about mutual trust. You see, before, you would put bills and coins in a piggy bank and there was only one way to retrieve the treasure inside: you had to destroy the toy. However, this pathetic pup and I had a mutual agreement. A covenant, if you will. As long as he watched over my few treasures, I would keep him handy and accessible at all times. We've both kept up our ends of the bargain to this day. He's still watching over my childhood treasures, and I'm still keeping him accessible on top of my dresser. The treasure he holds has lost value over the years, but our covenant has increased in value. The covenant is less and less about the treasure within and more and more about the relationship without.
Every once in awhile, my curiosity piques and I carefully ease my childhood treasure out of the World's Best Boss. I don't know about the World's Best Boss, but this puppy sure is dependable after all this time. Everything is still there, just like before. True blue. I carefully seal the worn-out plug in place once more with the worn-out masking tape that probably needs replacing, and I slowly entrust my favorite toy with memento after memento from my childhood. It's probably the ugliest toy I own, but it remains my most faithful. There's some beautiful about that. There's something rare about that.
