bogeyandruby

My husband just announced, « Dick Van Dyke turned one hundred. », and I’m like, « What, again?». It seems like I have been hearing about this milestone birthday forever. It turns out today is his actual birthday. Now that we have all arrived, can we please move on to Dick turning 101?

I’ll be honest, his pathological positivity has been getting on my nerves lately and I really wish he’d stop smiling so much.

I think I would have more respect for him if his wife wasn’t forty-six years his junior. That means he was forty-six the day she was born and he was a senior citizen when she was still a teenager.

I know, I know, here I am being catty when Dick Van Dyke doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.

He credits his longevity to his inability to feel hate or anger (which he describes as white heat, not to be confused with white hate which has something to do with white supremacy). He’s got no aches and pains either.

Like many people of my generation, I watched The Dick Van Dyke Show on our little black and white TV growing up. Everyone watched the same shows back then as there weren’t that many to choose from. I remember the opening credits where he trips on the ottoman though there was apparently a variation of this where he steps around it. I had also seen him in Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. His various roles seem to blur together in my mind, always in character, even when interviewed.

I think I have pinpointed why he annoys me so much. He is clearly an extrovert. I can tell even though I’ve only seen him on the screen. He is the kind of person who would drain my life force from me if we were ever in the same room and I prefer my centenarians to be cranky, thank you very much.

I think I know the secret of Dick Van Dyke’s longevity. He has been draining our collective batteries over the decades, an affable, energy sucking vampire, squirrelling away our vitality to fuel his maniacal grin, and leaving us to languish in the wake of his party dregs.

Go away, Dick. Don’t die, just dial it down a bit. Please.