I could while away the hours
Conferrin' with the flowers
Consultin' with the rain
And my head I'd be scratchin'
While my thoughts were busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain
—from If I Only Had a Brain, sung by the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz


A friend of mine named Doug recently had a brain MRI because he was having unexplained headaches.  The results, thankfully, were negative for a brain tumor.  Here’s how Doug reported the good news to me:  “As many people who know me predicted, the doctors found nothing in my head.”

Ba-dum bum.

My husband K— likes to make much the same self-deprecating joke.  His self-selected personal theme song (and I swear I had nothing to do with this) is If I Only Had a Brain.  For years, any time he did something moderately stupid or careless, he (not I) would sing it.

Take the day K— for some reason didn’t have his house key with him and found himself locked out.  He carried a ladder to our balcony, climbed it, hoisted himself over a rotten railing that, at that time, looked like it would collapse if a hummingbird flew by too close, and jimmied the iffy lock on a second-story slider in order to enter the house.  When he told me about all this later that day, I asked him, “Why didn’t you just use the spare key?”  He looked at me in utter bewilderment.  “The spare key?” I repeated.  “The one that’s been hidden outside for just such an eventuality for, oh, ten years now?”  Blank stare.  “Don’t play dumb,” I said.  “It’s the same one you always tell your mother to use if she gets locked out.”  As he walked away he began whistling, “Da-dum da-dum da-da-dum…”

Then there was the time I came back from a summertime business trip and K— filled me in on what had happened in my absence.  He recounted the warm and fuzzy experience of watching deer feed in our front yard the previous day.  The only thing is, we don’t put food out for deer, so I walked out onto our deck, and he followed me.  As I surveyed a scene of utter garden devastation, a look of dawning realization crossed his face and he said, “I guess I should have stopped them, huh?”

Da-dum da-dum da-da-dum…

And of course, everyone’s brain function is impaired at holiday time.  One Christmas, K—’s Mom asked him to dig out his old train set, the one he’d had as a little boy, and set it up for his young nephew.  He obliged, excavating the ancient box from its basement mausoleum and dragging it into our dining room to carefully unwrap the cars from their newspaper shrouds.  After he got it all unpacked and spread out over the dining room table, the placemats, and the kitchen cart, he informed me that I should be careful handling the box they’d been stored in because he’d found mouse droppings inside.

Da-dum da-dum da-da-dum…

You can imagine my delight when, one day, I was browsing for gifts at a local store and I found a bunch of little hand-cranked music boxes.  I couldn’t believe it when I saw that one of them played If I Only Had a Brain!  I bought one for K—, who got a chuckle out of it, and we keep it around the house to provide the soundtrack for those occasions when one of us has something truly idiotic to confess.*

I only wish I’d known about my friend Doug’s MRI earlier.  I would have sent him the little music box to take to the doctor’s office, concealed in his hand, when he got the test results.  It would have been priceless to see the look on the doctor’s face when he delivered the news and suddenly the strains of If I Only Had a Brain sang out in his office.  What a lost opportunity!  It’s just too good a joke to waste.  You know, I think I feel a headache coming on…


*  It gets a fair amount of use.