Me vs. Hamlet

Dear Readers,

Here's another story I wrote in the fall of 2004 at EAC:

Me vs. Hamlet

My Mom’s a fat old lady that sits in a chair all day. Literally, all day, she sits there, in the chair, watching TV. Sometimes she talks on the phone forever with this lady who’s got nothing better to do than talk with my Mom about nothing for hours at a time. I swear, both of those females have nothing to do. They must gossip. Yeah, my Mom’s a messed up person. And she lives in a messed up house. I should know. I live there too.

I don’t mean to be insulting towards the woman who gave birth to me. She did go through all that pain associated with childbirth to give me life. (A pain I can never really understand ‘cause I’m a man. How many times have women told me that?) But that pain does have to be appreciated. She went through all the pain of childbirth and she breastfed me, and that’s giving me a part of herself in a very physical motherly nurturing way and it’s really a romantic thing I guess. So I don’t mean to be insulting about Mom, but I also try to be an honest person. She really is lazy and she really does sit around the house all day and she really does weigh over two hundred and fifty pounds. Ask anyone who knows her.

But the bad thing is I not only have a problem with my Mom, I have a problem with women in general. Like, women everywhere, I got a problem with them. One of my favorite quotes from Hamlet is that pretty famous line in his first soliloquy where Hamlet’s all mad at his mother for re-marrying so quick after Hamlet Senior dies. He says, “Frailty thy name is woman”. Yep, that pretty much describes womankind for me. Women are frail. They’re frail, weak and they change their minds too much. They’re all messed up. I’m thirty years old, so I’ve been around ‘em along time. So I should know just as much about women as any other thirty year old man, right? If not more? I’m pretty smart. I consider myself to be educated. I graduated college. I’m may not be Sigmund Freud; I don’t know how to professionally psychoanalyze people, but I’ve hung around this planet for thirty years so I ought to know thirty years worth of stuff, right?

Right.

Back to Shakespeare. Shakespeare was the greatest writer who ever lived, as far as I and a bunch of other really smart people are concerned. Like I said, that Hamlet really knew what he was talking about when he said, “Frailty, thy name is woman.” A lot of people think that Hamlet was too whiny. And you know what? I agree with them. I do. I do think Hamlet was basically a snot-nose, man, a grade-A whiner. I mean, I can understand him being miffed about his father dying; you’ve got to go through a mourning process when there’s a death in the family, but still, Prince Hamlet just went on and on and on about how much life sucked. Who wants to go see a play about a guy whose life sucks and he’s complaining about it the whole time? People got enough problems on their own. They wanna see a play or a movie about people who overcome problems and get married at the end. With the cake and the rice-throwing and all the dancing. The hours and hours of dancing. You have to have the dancing. If you want to make a movie, you got to have the dancing. And in there somewhere, in this dream movie, there’d be a montage of the bride getting ready for the wedding at a hair salon and the stylist tries all kinds of different hairstyles, or the chick would be standing in front of a full-length mirror (that always looks good on film, people looking in mirrors) trying on different bracelets or necklaces with her girlfriends standing around giving their fashion opinions in their feminine way. And of course some new pop song would be playing while the bride is getting ready and the pop song is about love and of course it’s about love, love, love, love, love. It has to be about love. That’s what people want to see when they go to the movies. Love, love, love, love, love.

But then there’s the question of artistic integrity. Maybe real art isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s not supposed to have a happy ending. Maybe real art is supposed to be just like your life. Exactly like your life. So realistic and so like your life, in fact, that it’s not even entertaining, because you live it everyday and you know what’s going to happen. Maybe I’m on to something. Maybe the truest form of art is exactly what you’re doing right now. Yeah, I think that’s true art. But it’s so depressing nobody wants to pay for it. And who would market it? Not me.

Back to Shakespeare. In any case, Hamlet’s established as a classic. We know that. So I’m not questioning its literary merit; I know it’s a brilliant piece of writing. Like I said, Shakespeare’s the biggest thing around. The next time you’re lying on the leather couch playing that word association game where the psychiatrist says a word or a phrase and then you say the first word that pops into your head (you know that game?) and the psychiatrist says “great writing,” you should say “Shakespeare”. “Shakespeare” goes with “great writing,” OK? They say there’s no right or wrong answer in that game, but they only say that because they think you’re crazy and they don’t want to upset you by telling you that you did something wrong. See, when they say, “children”, and you say, “knives”, they’ll say, “Yeah, that was good. You’re making real progress. I think we’re really close to getting through your inner conflict.” And when they say that they’ll smile pleasantly and give a sincere, encouraging nod. They want to keep you as a paying customer, you understand. They run a business. But I’m here to tell you that there are right and wrong answers in that game, and the right answer to “great writing” is “Shakespeare.”

Again, I’m not challenging Hamlet’s literary prowess. What I’m questioning is whether Hamlet’s a sissy or not. I mean, he was going through a rough time with the death of his father and stuff, but he had that hot babe, Ophelia, ready to get into his pants! He had Ophelia, man! Ophelia! I don’t care what the situation is: If Ophelia was all over me, I’d have nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about, man. I’d have a job. I’d have Ophelia back at home, fixing up some dinner, talking with Mom in the recliner. It’d be great. I can see the scene now:

Mom: Ophelia, Ophelia, get me the Cheetoes!
Ophelia: Get ‘em yourself, you old hag!

And Mom would probably call her a shorter, easier name to say, like Ophie:

Mom: Ophie, Ophie, I said go get me the Cheetos!
Ophelia: And I said get ‘em yourself!

Oh, and Ophelia would still talk in that Shakespeare language, so it’d be like:

Mom: Ophie, Ophie, for the last time, get me the Cheetos!
Ophelia: Nay, I’ll refrain from retrieving, acorn!

Ha, ha, ha. They’d both be stuck in the house all day fighting. Mom would sit in her chair all day, yelling, while Ophelia would fix dinner and clean the house up. And she’d wear one of those old Victorian dresses all time, you know with a corset and a stiff white collar that sticks out all funny. And she’d always have her hair up and wear that white makeup.

Then I’d get home from work, a hard day of hammering and drilling and sweating, with dirt beneath my fingernails, wearing dirty blue jeans and an old T-shirt, or maybe I’d even be wearing overalls. So I’d enter the stage and it would go like this:

Me: Ah…I’m back.
Ophelia: Hath my blessed husband been so long a-working
That blisters hath sprouted upon thy palms?
O let me tenderly rub them, and anoint
Thee with scented oils from the Orient!
Me: That’s right baby. [They smooch]
Ophelia: O my love- thy kisses to me are like the heavenly
Feathers fluttering upon my receiving lips!
O how my bosom yearns for thine embrace,
With a fire only thy love can satisfy.
Me: Dang I like that Shakespeare talk. [They smooch]
Mom: Cut it with the corny stuff, Ophie, and stop kissing my son! And get me
the Cheetos!

Here I am fantasizing about Ophelia, a fictional character. I’m a loser. I still live with my Mom. I have a point, though. I’d treat Ophelia 1,000 times better than Hamlet ever did. 1,000 times better! Hamlet was a woman! Did you hear that, Hamlet? I said you’re a woman! I challenge you to a duel, Prince Hamlet! A duel for the hand of Ophelia in marriage!