Friday, November 17, 2006

Double Transgression

My mother told me that I could not learn a thing from watching television.

She was very wrong.

For example, I learned a valuable cultural and behavioral theory from a television show recently.

My enlightenment occurred while watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. For you intellectuals that obeyed my mother and do not watch television, that’s an HBO show written by Larry David, the creator and writer of Seinfeld.

Larry David makes me laugh; right out loud while sitting on the couch.

The theory, according to Larry’s agent Jeff, is known as the ‘Double Transgression Theory’.

It sounds pretty important with profound psychological implications dripping off its every letter.

It goes like this:

Imagine a dog that has peed on the floor. He has been caught with his leg lifted, and is being herded to the yard to be disciplined. The dog knowing he is already in trouble snatches the plate of ham off the table on his way out. The dog is theorizing that since he is already in trouble and will have to suffer a punishment, why not get another transgression out of the way at the same time, resulting in one punishment rather than the two he would get if he snatched the ham later in the day.

Of course a dog thought of this. Who else?

I like this theory.

IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES.

You may feel free to report to my mom that I haven’t called her because I have been diligently studying the cultural implications of the double transgression theory and its effects on my personal behavior when confronted with conflicting choices. That will impress her. She likes long sentences like the ones George Will invents.

But, please don’t tell her where I learned this information. She doesn’t like being wrong.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know, this just happened last week. Getting punished for starting a fight he couldn't win and taking down all his friends at the same time, but hey the family fortune has been swelling beyond comprehension as he heads to barn for a whoopin'.

Reach said...

Seven,
Unfortunately, we watch Encore. However, it does sound like a good show.

Reach

Monogram Queen said...

Wow I did that all the time as a kid. If I was already in trouble i'd go ahead and do something ELSE that I wanted, for which I knew I would get in trouble and voila. Only one punishment. Sweet!

Rick said...

I rather like this idea. All I have to do now is come up with a second transgression to hold in reserve, lest I be caught for something completely unrelated.

Anonymous said...

Seven, just for the record . . . *this* post is your second transgression. Twice this week you have picked on sweet older ladies. Just to head off any posts about me, you should understand that with #3 the count starts over. And I will get you. "Sweet" don't necessarily apply to ALL of us.

Unknown said...

Like my daughter who is not suppose to be on the cell phone after 9pm nor is she suppose to use text messaging at all.. she figures I can take away the phone only once... but I can DOUBLE the punishment. take away the phone AND make her work to pay back the text messageing charges!

of course I also learned to just have the service removed from the account so she couldn't do it in the future IF she ever gets the phone back....

Enemy of the Republic said...

I love House and I learn from it. I know so much about medicine now. But I'm still dumb in science.

Steve said...

Well, the intellectuals, while I don't speak for all of them, might wonder about morals.. actually so would the spiritual feeling types I believe. Is there a moral dilemma here with doing wrong? It's all relative as to what's moral or not, but purposely doing wrong in any case... well, it doesn't seem right.