I Do Not Look Like A Plate of Spaghetti and Meatballs. I Do Not Look Like A Plate of Spaghetti and Meatballs.

In my misspent youth, I used to be an enormous Mad Magazine fan. One particular cartoon has, in a sense, become my life's philosophy. I will spare you, dear reader, all of the unbelievably bizarre details, but the gist of it is that one man goes into an Italian restaurant for dinner, and, due to a preposterously unlikely -- and therefore side-splittingly funny -- sequence of events, gets into a heated argument with the staff there.

Meanwhile, another man is walking out of his psychiatrist's office. His psychiatrist gives him a little speech that goes something like the following:

"Well, Mister Fonebone, I believe our work here is complete. After years of hard work, you are now ready to face the world, secure in the knowledge that you do not look like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs! Good luck!"

Mister Fonebone, who seems rather less confident in the success of the therapy than the psychiatrist, proceeds to walk down the street, all the time nervously chanting to himself the mantra: "I do not look like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. I do not look like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs."

Back at the Italian restaurant, the patron, in his anger at the staff, grabs a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, and hurls it at the waiter.

What happens next? Of course. The waiter ducks, and the plate of spaghetti and meatballs sails past him, out the door and hits Mister Fonebone in the face.

And so the comic ends, with Mister Fonebone walking down the street, with a plate of spaghetti and meatballs plastered on his face, continuing to bravely chant his mantra:  "I do not look like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. I do not look like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs."

Why has this cartoon become my life's philosophy? Because I feel that each of us, in one sense or another, has this fear that we look like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. And we find the belief very difficult to shake, even though part of us realizes how utterly irrational and ludicrous this belief is, and that it is just our mind which has created this false belief that we look like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

And so, we go through life, constantly struggling to convince ourselves that in reality we indeed do not look like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. And then, just as we feel that we may have finally overcome this illogical notion -- Wham! Some bizarre event takes place, and we are hit in the face (hopefully, only metaphorically) with yet another piece of irrefutable evidence that we actually do look like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs.