Finding Happy

I invented an umbrella. It was shaped like an upside down "U," and my new friends in the Design Department's model shop at RCA made it for me. In 1970, women's hairstyles required a lot of back combing (teasing) to make us look as if we had more hair than we actually had. For me, it was especially challenging because I had fine, thin hair, and when I teased it, it looked like a rat's nest covered with a  few strands of hair. The only way to protect the rat's nest from being destroyed in wind and rain was to saturate it with heavy duty hairspray and wrap it in scarves. My umbrella was a perfect solution to the inclemencies, but a few years after my one umbrella hit the streets, the big helmet hair phase was replaced by long straight hair. I shelved my invention, but someone else on this big populated planet had come up with the idea for upside down "U" umbrella, too, and they followed through with the patent and production and they became very rich; I didn't care. Money was never a motivator for me; finding Happy was.

In 1970, at age twenty-five, finding Happy and having it last a lifetime was my primary goal. Working, going to school, and inventing umbrellas were merely distractions, things to keep me busy, while waiting for Happy to show up. Once it made its grand entrance, I could stop working, discontinue college, shelve any future inventions, and any accomplishments and goals I might have. Happy would swoop in, gather me up, and carry me away to where Happy lives. I'd be a wife, mother, housekeeper and my husband would adore me, take care of me, and never betray me.

Wherever Happy lived,  it was somewhere in the future. That much I knew. Something else I had known since the age of nine was Happy was a man. Finding a man equalled finding Happy. Me + Man = Happy.  Without a man, I was incomplete; I could never find Happy. But wait! I had a man already--my first love, my eighth-grade crush.  But where was Happy?

Me + Man + my best friend = Happy gone. Happy was nowhere to be found. So there was only one thing for me to do. Invent something...and find another man.

I invented "No Dang-Door-Dingies" (name later changed to "No Dings") car door protector with the help of my friends in the Design Department's model shop. With my invention, door dings would be a thing of the past, but there were problems with the prototype; I never followed through with the patent or production, and someone somewhere else on this big planet invented a ding-resistant paint, thereby making my invention obsolete; I didn't care. Money was never that important to me; finding Happy was.

Jim worked in the mail room, and he liked me. If there was one person in the entire corporation who made less money than me, it would be Jim, but he was a man, which meant Happy might know him, so while the betrayal of my first love and my best friend moved to the background, the foreground was crowded with another man's infatuation, doting, words of affirmation, and hints that he just may be on a first-name basis with Happy.

Will the real Happy please stand up. Me + Man = Happy -- but Happy1 or Happy2? I hadn't thought about there being more than one Happy out there, but, of course, there had to be, depending on the man. This difference was brought to my attention by Happy1 when it was discovered I was hanging out with Happy2. But wait! Happy1 meant I had to share my man with my best friend, so that wasn't going to work for me. Nope! No way, Jose! Ain't gonna happen. Happy2 was looking pretty good to me.

Off to the Shadeland Avenue drive-in we go. But first, Jim wanted to pick up some Boone's Farm Apple Wine. While he was in the liquor store at 30th and Shadeland, Happy1 knocked on the passenger side window. Surprised by the coincidence of my two Happies being at the same place at the same time, I rolled down the window. Wrong thing to do. I'm sure what Happy1 meant to say was "I'm so, so sorry for my failings, but I am your true love, and I will spend the rest of my life working hard to make you happy." But what he really said I can't repeat here. My grandchildren are going to read this someday.

It was still light when we pulled into a parking spot close to the concession stand. Only a few seconds after Jim left the car to get popcorn, hotdogs and drinks, the second coincidence of the night occurred. Tap! Tap! Tap! Oh, look. Happy1 is at the movies, too. I rolled my window down. Wrong thing to do. I'm pretty certain what my first love meant to say was, "Did I mention I'm sorry for doing the nasty-nasty with your best friend? 'Cause if I didn't, I'm so, so sorry. I love you with all of my heart. Please give me another chance." But what he really said I can't repeat here. Remember the grandchildren.

As Happy2 rounded the corner of the concession stand with snacks in hand, Happy1 was still visiting with me. Wrong thing to do. Jim had just returned from Viet Nam and he was full of pent-up anger from his experiences there. At twenty-one, he was built like a bull and he was ready to charge. But my former love was lightening fast. In a flash, he was gone. Poof! Just like that. Disappeared.

Finding Happy was my full time job, but it wasn't going to be as easy as I had hoped. There were two Happies vying for my hand: one was young, fresh out of the army, battle worn, nothing to offer me but love, and the other was five years older than me, an attorney, brilliant, cunning, manipulative, and he knew which buttons to push to get me to do as he pleased. If I was down, he would lift me up; if I needed a helping hand, he was there; whatever I wanted to do, he encouraged it, All of the wonderful things he was to me, all of the amazing things he did for me were contingent upon my doing as he pleased, and if I didn't, they would be used to attack me. "After everything I have done for you," he would say, followed by "You are the most self-centered, selfish person I have ever known." Those two buttons, when pushed, stabbed the deepest, because I thought I was good, but I was wrong. As bad as I was there was still only one man, my first love, Happy1 who made promises of little pitter patter feet by next Christmas. Yes, children...by next Christmas. Had I finally found Happy?

Early 1970's. Umbrella invented to protect rats' nests.