Dad, you got picked for everything
Dad, you got picked for everything. I remember going to Disney and waiting outside Superstar Television, a “show” where audience members were superimposed as characters in tv shows. Over many Disney trips, you were picked time and time again, even after you held me in the air so I could get picked - you still got picked. You were called down to dress in a costume at the Indiana Jones show. You were picked to do a trick with a sea lion at the zoo. You did the voice of Martin Short at an MGM Studios performance.. At the Barbie Show, I was so excited that I could finally get picked without competing with my Dad. Yet, they picked some other girl who barely smiled.
The only time you weren’t picked was at Dame Edna, when Dame Edna picked Grandma Sullivan. And thank goodness for that because the hilarity of the conversation between Grandma Sullivan and Dame Edna could rank in the top ten Hoffman family moments. Dangit. Now I am going to spend time making a list of the top 10 Hoffman Family moments. Sidenote - I am only now realizing that I called my Grandma “Grandma Sullivan” like she was an 1800s duchess. I assure you she was not.
I know science doesn’t work this way, but sometimes I feel like you got picked for COVID. The difference between a Peloton class with 60 people on March 7, to a half-attended Riverdance on March 10th, to an empty office on March 12, COVID escalated quickly, yet still didn’t seem real. Then Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson got COVID and all of a sudden, it was real. If Tom Hanks, one of the most lovable actors of our time, could get COVID, anyone could get COVID. I thought the world gave Tom Hanks COVID as a threat to the nation to take COVID seriously. The universe was saying “who do we have to give COVID to around here for people to take this shit seriously?! We need a non-controversial celebrity loved by most, known to all, and relevant across generations. Let’s start with Tom Hanks, with Meryl Streep on standby.”
Phil, you were the non-famous Tom Hanks of COVID, except your fate was worse. People didn’t necessarily know what to make of COVID or how scared to be of COVID. And then you died of COVID. You had such a huge network of people in your life that all of a sudden, hundreds of people knew an amazing person who died of COVID. COVID was real and could take anyone, even the best of the best, even the ones waiting to retire with their spouses to travel the world, the ones waiting to walk their daughter down the aisle, the ones desperate to see what colleges their grandkids would choose, and the ones waiting for the Rangers to win the Stanley Cup again.
Dad, you got picked for everything. Why did you have to get picked for COVID?
