From The Inspirational To The Mundane

About 15 years ago, I saw a movie with a character named Billy Peck. He applied for a job in a large corporation for some lowly position. The hiring manager, however, saw something in Billy he hadn't even seen in himself - determination. The manager told Billy he could have the job if he was able to deliver a one-of-a-kind vase at an arranged time and place. The trick, however, was that he hired somebody else to intervene and make sure that vase never got delivered. While Billy was on the way to the delivery spot with vase in hand, the rogue meddler jumps out of a shadow and smashes the vase into a million pieces.

Billy, determined more to deliver the vase than to get the job, has about thirty minutes to find a replacement and still make the drop-off. Of course, all of the shops are closed. But Billy finally finds a merchant open late and behold, is selling the exact vase - and several more just like it.

The vase was not invaluable but the lesson was: even when the task ahead of us is impossible to successfully complete, determination and a little luck may pull us through.

When something comes into my life that is seemingly more powerful than I, I think of Billy Peck and his blue vase while singing High Hopes and try to envision an ant trying to move a rubber tree plant or a ram punching a hole in a billion-kilowatt dam.

Well, yesterday I went to Half Price Books on my lunch break. For about the past five years, I've looked everywhere for The Official Preppy Handbook. It's a tongue-in-cheek book written 25 years ago intended to poke fun of those that love the polo collar turned up, wear pink shamelessly, and won't ever think of wearing cuff-less trousers.

The handbook became an instant classic for preps all over the country. I had a well-consulted copy when I was younger that somehow got lost along the way. It became my own blue vase. Well, yesterday, I found a copy for $4.

I had forgotten how humorously timeless and accurate the book is. And how ridiculous I must've looked walking down the high school halls with my sweater casually thrown over my shoulders and my topsiders with the laces knotted on the end, never tied together.