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Oars | Jun 20 2003

How is my favorite niece ever? Fabulous, I hope. I hear from your dad that you like third grade and are getting great marks. This is excellent news, and as always I’m very proud of you. Your dad also said that you asked him if I’m still your uncle now that he’s not living with you and your mom. Sweetheart, I will always be your uncle no matter what, so you never have to worry about that.

Anyway, I’m writing to you today to teach you a new phrase. Like all the phrases I’ve taught you, this one means that someone is crazy. Here is the phrase used in a sentence: Daddy doesn’t have both oars in the water.

Do you know what oars are? They are the long wooden things you row a rowboat with. If you row a rowboat with only one oar in the water, the boat will spin in circles. So when you say that someone doesn’t have both oars in the water, you are saying that the person just goes around in circles. This means that the person is crazy. Do you understand?

This phrase is a lot like saying that someone is minus some buttons (remember that one?). However, it is meaner than minus some buttons because a person can be minus some buttons and still be okay, but a person who doesn’t have both oars in the water is in big trouble.

Both phrases are different from saying that someone has lost his marbles (remember that one?). When someone has lost his marbles, there is a chance he might find them again, but when someone is minus some buttons, it is because he never had those buttons to begin with.

Maybe you are thinking that buttons can be lost, the same as marbles. This is true, but notice that the phrase doesn’t say that the person lost some buttons. Instead it says that the person is minus some buttons. You can be minus something without ever losing it. Think of a person who was born without a nose. That person would be minus a nose, but he wouldn’t have lost a nose since he never had one to begin with.

Another good example would be your father. There are things your father can never lose because he never had them to begin with. Do you know what these things are? Don’t rush to figure this out, because I’m sure it will come to you in time.

But back to the new phrase. When you say that someone doesn’t have both oars in the water, you are saying that he is minus something he needs to make his oars work. This is a lot like being born without a nose. A person born without a nose would never smell anything, no matter how hard he tried and no matter how nicely things smelled. Nothing in the world can ever change this. You need a nose to smell things.

Try to remember this for when you figure out what your father is minus.