From Unreal To Surreal

I heard an ultimate fighter the other day comment that his experience was "surreal."

I guess a pretty good sign that a catchword or catchphrase has slipped into the morbidly overused status is when an ultimate fighter uses it. Like the “Been there, done that” of a few years ago.

Personally, when I hear the word “surreal,” I think of Dali’s melting clocks, or his Crucifixion which, btw, I’ve seen face-to-face, not the bloody and sweaty entanglement of arms and legs. But, that’s just me.

Anyway, I was driving to the pool room on Tuesday, listening to Aretha Franklin singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” while stopped at the traffic light at Little Road and Highway 52 where three characters, two women and one man, dressed like the Statue of Liberty, the man in a bluish mask, were dancing around on the northwest corner, hawking the Liberty Tax Service, when the descriptive term “surreal” popped into my mind.

I had considered delaying my departure for a few minutes so that I could watch Obama take the oath of office on TV, but my desire to play pool had won out. At that point in the program, the actual swearing in, I was heading west on Highway 54 stopped at the light at Seven Springs Boulevard with my radio still tuned to WUSF, our local NPR station, and blasting. I thought of rolling down my windows to share the moment with my fellow drivers, but thought better of it. The reality that their minds were focused on a whole range of matters while the swearing in ceremony was going on was what make the moment “surreal.” Jeez, it’s almost embarrassing to use that word, but, feeling like I was in a Dali painting, it was somehow apropos.