The Wile E. Coyote Syndrome
A Sad Cartoon?
Road Runner has been eluding Wile E. Coyote for many years. As a child I laughed like crazy at those cartoons, even as an adult they’re still pretty funny. The elaborate inventions Wile E. came up with to destroy Road Runner would spark my imagination. They usually included the Acme Rocket Company or TNT in some form or other. But one thing forever held true, Wile E. Coyote would always get the worst of it. Road Runner would barely recognize that he was being pursued. Undaunted Wile E. could not give up. He had one goal, to get his imagined nemesis.
I received an email the other day that included a new Wile E. Coyote Road Runner cartoon. It started off with the usual plot, Wile E. preparing his rock on top of a cliff overlooking the roadway where Road Runner was sure to appear. No matter how many times Wile E. Coyote screws up he’s still filled with enthusiasm each time he sets up his boulder. This time the scenario was slightly different, by some crazy happenstance Wile E. got his bird. It was a little gory but after all it’s still only a cartoon. Talk about your elated Coyotes, he was in disbelief heaven, leaping up and down jumping for joy over the dead bird carcass.
But as they say “be careful what you wish for”. Wile E. sat around his cave for a few days enjoying his new found success but that soon wore off. He had no friends because he devoted all his time to his Road Runner fetish. What to do today, nothing on the agenda. What to do tomorrow, same as today. He looked in the mirror at himself and he had suddenly grown old. The days went by slowly and he took to drinking to pass the time away. Yes Wile E. Coyote had become a drunk. His one goal in life had been accomplished and now he had nothing to live for. So he set off to destroy himself, to end his now miserable life the way he ended his arch-rivals. This turned out to be a very sad cartoon but I guess there is a moral here somewhere. There’s a few, just pick one.
Comments greatly appreciated.
©2012 Lee Zett