I ride the train to work. Today I sat down and staring back at me was a poster advertising the sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond”.
I don’t regularly watch the show, but I have seen it. It’s funny. I imagine most people like it. Can’t say I ever gave much thought to whether we all love it.
Well, apparently someone else had because as I looked at the picture something caught my eye: a change in the show’s title.
Someone had taken a pen, crossed out “Every” and written “No” above it. It now read “Nobody Loves Raymond”.
Well, I thought to myself, The guy who did this has far too much free time on his hands. I mean, he’s altering a sitcom title. Who cares? Is Ray Romano crying somewhere because of this? Are people turning off their TV sets due to this scribbler’s antics? Doubtful.
Then, I realized, this doodling activist did not want to be pigeonholed. He wouldn’t be confined to a life of conformity, joining the masses who all love Raymond.
But, I puzzled, didn’t his rendering of the title have the same shortfall? Now, “nobody” loved Raymond. We’re still all the same; still taking sides with the mobocracy, only now at the other extreme.
What could this brigand be saying to us? We may never know. But he had spurred me to take action. I had to respond in some way to this rabble rouser who had put my mind to thinking.
So, I stood up, walked over to the ad, crossed out “No” and wrote in “Some” above it.
“Somebody Loves Raymond”.
Isn’t that what we’re all really looking for? The knowledge that “somebody”, not necessarily “everybody”, certainly not “nobody”, but “somebody” loves us?
Or at least that “somebody” loves Raymond.
I mean, it’s a pretty good show after all…