.

Gotta love the word… OXYMORON…

While its true meaning is funny in itself, the word (an excellent Scrabble point’s grabber)- to me – implies an idiot catching his breath.

Whatever… the important thing is I laugh when I hear the word.

The word is derived from two ancient Greek words: oxys, which means “sharp,” and moronos, which means “dull” or “stupid.” Yes, even the word oxymoron is an oxymoron!

The days are getting oh-so-short here in Slumberland… the weather is way-out-of-character cold… and I’m sweeping the dust bunnies out of the nooks and crannies of my noggin searching for a hidden challenge … something to invigorate my snow-globe clouded mind… because, as you know, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

So, to drag myself up, up, and away into the blue skies of mental magic today, I’ve decided to write a simply complex oxymoronic tale, a silly, bittersweet story of incredibly bad dialogue, terrible plot-lines, and sad attempts at oxymoron’isms. Properly ridiculous, would you say?

The hills are alive, let’s go twerking in the Austrian Alps…

The Silliest Sounds of Music

“Good grief“, she uttered through the clamorous hubbub of 7 excited children, staring off into the distance, dreaming of a warm holiday, perhaps the French Riviera or southern Spain… this was nothing like the working vacation she had envisioned coming into this bone-chilling Austrian winter.

Maria would sooner be a happily disgruntled nun than look after this unruly band of Butt-Heads, this small crowd of hoodlums otherwise known as the Von Trapp children.

Did the Captain even have the foggiest notion in his unconscious awareness that 16-going-on-17 Liesl was sneaking out at night to earn tips sliding and shimmying as a pole dancer in the Salzburg Barrel Haus? Yes, fellows WERE falling in line, those eager young lads, rogues and cads who were offering her food and wine, and much much more.

Months before, when Mother Superior told Maria, implored her really – in a detailed summary – of the opportunity to shed her habit and become a student teacher of sorts, she jumped at the chance. After all, it was an open secret at the abbey that Maria was a devout atheist.

Perhaps, thought cheerful pessimist Mother Superior, nannying a gaggle of defiant ragamuffins and a curmudgeonly Captain would help Maria to climb ev’ry mountain, ford ev’ry stream and find God.

Some of her sister nuns saw this as seriously funny, while others cast their eyes upon her in a pretty ugly way.

.

But how had Maria ever ended up in a secluded Catholic convent, this place of sweet sorrow, where desperate freezer burnt women huddled in endless, quiet prayer?

It was old news that the Nazis had plans to forcefully conscript members of the Austrian militia to aid in their efforts to control the entire planet.

Before entering the convent, Maria had belonged to a militant pacifist group, a small crowd of bohemians that believed an Austrian civil war could be avoided, if they could only convince the general population to adopt a peaceful resistance of intense apathy. The unsophisticated group firmly believed that doing nothing could be the saviour of the motherland of Austria, at least until the Nazis took brutal control.

Maria had clearly misunderstood the mood of the populace.

Loud whispers grew in the underground faction, of her naive complicity with the German invaders and other ne’er-do-wells. With each passing day, she could feel the walls closing in upon her and her pacifist movement; if nothing was done soon, she would likely end up behind bars, perhaps even disappear like so many others she had heard of, in the night.

“You must hide yourself away from these slimy Nazi bastards“, implored her equally-naive freund Gertrude with a sad smile. “They will steal your guitar and your do-re-mi… I read a wonderful little story by some English playwright the other day who said, ‘Get thee to a Nunnery!’. I think this is fine advice. Take your guitar and skip away Maria.” It seemed her only choice.

In the dark morning light when the co-conspirator Austrian police and German army officers crashed through her door to arrest her, a deafening silence could be heard as the police realized she had absconded.

“Drat“, they exclaimed, Maria had been found missing. She truly was a wise fool they collectively agreed, as they nibbled on jumbo shrimp sent along by the wife of one of the police lieutenants.

.

Time was running out and Maria and the Von Trapp family soon found themselves between a soft rock and a hard place. Both the Austrian police and the German army declared that climbing trees while wearing gaudy curtains was tantamount to treason and would be punishable by internment in a travelling marionette show run by lonely goat-herders.

Though the Captain had recently been in ill health, the family knew the writing was on the wall. Escape was their only avenue.

In order to raise the funds needed to mount a hike over the snow-covered Alps in the dead of winter, Maria and the Captain signed a contract for a live recording of their journey with a reality show producer that Liesl had met while lap dancing at the Barrel Haus.

This terribly good tale of the VonTrapp family comes to a close as we view a drone-shot of the group, twirling and singing in melancholy merriment as they traipse through waist-deep snow, like frozen zombies of The Walking Dead, enroute to Switzerland and lucrative deals with Swiss Chocolate and Watch makers.

  • – Fade to black –