TOW #1 - "Insert Flap "A" and Throw Away" by S.J. Perelman

As children, we anxiously await adulthood. That leap into the world of staying up late, driving a 2000-pound death trap, and best of all, caring for rascals of our own. To a child, these aspects can seem like a light-year away, but when that milestone is finally reached, there are nearly no steps leading back. S.J. Perelman, an American humorist well into his “light-year”, received an Academy Award for screenwriting in 1956 - twelve years after publishing a piece entitled Insert Flap “A” and Throw Away. This short essay focuses on a middle-aged Perelman fighting through the directions to a 1940’s “Self-Running 10-Inch Scale-Model Delivery-Truck Kit”, costing only 29-cents, and of course, his integrity. He begins by setting the scene on a late August day, using the rhetorical device of hyperbole to describe the “sharply sloping attic heated to 340 degrees F” (Perelman 186). Due to the immediate use of exaggeration, Perelman’s satirical tone is clear, and sets up the rest of the essay to be so. However, it is not the blazing heat that causes Perelman’s psychotic break, but the “Build-Your-Own Toy Truck” his son buys later that same year. In agony, Perelman manages to construct a minuscule amount of the Truck, only to realize that the surrounding children are already completing the task much faster. To everyone’s surprise, stress takes over Perelman as he plunges to the ground, and blacks out. In the final scene, Perelman wakes up to find his wife consulting a doctor about how to treat her tense husband. The doctor replies “Get him a detective story […] Or better still, a nice, soothing picture puzzle” (Perelman 189). In other words, ‘get him a simple activity, one a child would enjoy.’ As an author, Perelman wants to reach out to over-worked parents, needing a break; he needs to remind them to bring the “child-side” back into their life. His child was able to construct the toy truck due to his basic thinking process. Perelman uses this cute anecdote to express that not every idea needs to be over-thought to be understood, and he does a superb job at showing that.  

Source: "The Best American Essays of the Century"

Visual: https://www.pinterest.com/ysyw/1940s-memorabilia/

Caption: "A Slink (leap) Back in Time"