The Folded Clock: A Diary

Chapter 82: August 23

Today I visited antiques shops. I’d invited my daughter and her friend along as my shopping enablers. They did not fulfill their mandate. I found a poster I liked of a pregnant Girl Scout, circa 1969, smiling beside the slogan: Be prepared. She wore patent leather Mary Janes and kneesocks. She was kind of like Piero della Francesca’s pregnant Madonna. (I just looked up mary how old annunciation. Internet estimates put her between twelve and sixteen years old, meaning she could have been a Girl Scout Cadette or a Girl Scout Senior.) My daughter and her friend counseled me not to buy the poster. I tried to sell them on selling me on buying it. “Why do you like it?” they asked. “Because it’s so funny!” I said. They scrutinized the poster. “Why is it funny?” they asked. I didn’t know why it was funny. Because teenage pregnancy is hilarious? I bought it because I didn’t fully get the joke, and because I wasn’t certain there was meant to be a joke at all. But I liked that the Girl Scout appears to have no idea that she’s pregnant, I liked that “Be prepared” might simply refer to her stylishness and her psychotic smiling gameness, both of which, it seemed to me, were classic Girl Scout traits. And isn’t being prepared to be unprepared the best form of preparedness? If you think you’re ready for anything, you’re probably not ready at all.