If you love something, set if free. If it comes back to you, then it was meant to be. Isn’t that the old clichéd saying? And aren’t all old clichéd sayings completely and utterly true in every sense? Well, people, I’m here today on behalf of the T.J. Monkey’s Cliché Police with a shocking revelation: sometimes they’re not!
I mean, what if you’re the warden at a prison, and you love an inmate. You’d set him/her free right? I mean, that’s what the damn thing says! But nooooo, that’s illegal, that’s wrooooong. And what it you love this bird, who’s in a cage, and right above the cage is an invisible network of lasers, and if you open the bird’s cage (or "set him free"), he will certainly fly right into the invisible lasers and be cut in pieces. He won’t be coming back, brother! Whether he loves you or not! You love the bird, right? So set him free! But noooooo, they’ll say, that’s cruel, that’s evil, chopping up bird with lasers is wrooooong.
Did no one think of situations like these when they made up clichés like this??! Who are these people?!! Do they have no sense? Are they idiots? I mean, maybe that bird scenario required a little complex thought on my behalf, but that inmate thing just jumps right out at ya when you hear the damn thing.
So, I propose this: a new, more bulletproof cliché, one that can stand up to this kind of tough philosophical attack. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think I’ve come up with a real winner. How about: If you love something, set it free, except if it’s an inmate, or a bird near lasers (see below). If it comes back to you, then it was meant to be. And then below, you’d fully explain the whole bird thing. Pretty good, huh? Clean, easy, simple. Ties up all the loose ends, really.
Except if people miss the "see below" thing. People hate to read footnotes. And if they skip the footnote, they’ll complete miss the essence of the bird thing. OK, OK, how about: If you love something, check to see if there are lasers nearby, and make sure you’re not a prison warder, and if these things are not true, then set it free. If it comes back to you, then it was meant to be.
Wait, what if you set something free (because you love it and saw no lasers), and it comes back to you, but when it comes back to you, it comes too fast, and hits you in the face, and you have to go to an optometrist and wear a patch for a while. That certainly can’t be meant to be. No one was meant to wear a stupid patch. Unless you’re a pirate. I don’t think clichés apply to pirates. We won’t pursue that tangent.
OK, seriously here, we’ll get this done… If you, a non-warden, love something, check for lasers, set it free and duck. If it comes back to you, it was meant to be.
What if it’s an evil demon? Even if you love it, you probably shouldn’t set it free. It might kill you and eat your soul. Of course, unless you get to it first… OK, then: If you love something, kill it. If it comes back to you… IT’S A ZOMBIE!!! RUN!!! RUN!!!!
OK, hold on, here we go, this is it, and it’s final. This is the new cliché, and I mean it:
If you, being a non-warden and not seeing any lasers, love something that is not likely to eat your soul, set it free, duck, rinse, and repeat. If it comes back to you, and it’s not an evil brain-eating zombie, and it’s not some boomerang shaped thing that’s supposed to come back anyway, and you’re not a pirate, and you’re filing singly or filing jointly with your spouse but claiming no dependents, then, and only then, it was absolutely, positively, totally and completely meant to be. Maybe.
There. Isn’t that a lot better? No holes in that sucker! Now we have something we can all get behind. So feel free to start inserting this pithy little statement into your dinner party conversations. Good night, and rest assured the T.J. Monkey’s Cliché Police are hot on the tail of other bothersome phrases. Our only defense is our constant vigilance.