Have you ever noticed that it\u2019s always Batman & Robin, never Robin & Batman? In life, there always seems to be a need for a top banana in an act, the one who comes before the ampersand. And then there\u2019s that fellow who is on the south side of the ampersand, the one I like to call Ampersand Man.<\/p>\n
It sounds kind of super heroish, doesn\u2019t it? Ampersand Man. But as we all know, it\u2019s hardly super being Ampersand Man, always serving as the sidekick or the second fiddle in the duo. Sure, Abbott, Laurel, Sonny, Captain and Penn are all happy as hell, but what about Costello, Hardy, Cher, Tennille and Teller? Are they that thrilled about being post-ampersand, especially since they are doing much of the heavy lifting in their ampersand life.<\/p>\n
I speak with a lot of authority on the subject, for much of my life I have been Ampersand Man. I guess it\u2019s my own fault. Being attracted to strong women, a few who may have had penises, or at least should have, will get you Ampersand Man status. The pre-ampersand position was snapped up from the get-go, and there\u2019s no way you\u2019re ever going to rise to the occasion, or the status. The die was already cast.<\/p>\n
So you learn to live the life of Ampersand Man. You\u2019re second banana, even though a lot of the work you do is credited to your significant other, the one who comes before the \u2018&\u2019 in your relationship.<\/p>\n
Just look at Robin\u2019s plight. Watch the old episodes of Batman and you\u2019ll see that Robin often gets to take the first WHACK! or ZOWIE! at the Penguin or Joker. But in the end, Batman gets all the praise from Chief O\u2019Hara and Commissioner Gordon. Robin just stands there, gee-whizing his way through life, wishing he\u2019d be allowed to drive the Batmobile a time or two.<\/p>\n
I guess that\u2019s the way it works. Second fiddles don\u2019t get the glory, even if they do all the work. In my case, that\u2019s the way it has always worked. I was the Jerry Lewis to someone else\u2019s Dean Martin, the Sonny to another\u2019s Cher. I would do the hard work while they lapped up the limelight, leaving me in the dark.<\/p>\n
I admit, it wasn\u2019t always so bad. I don\u2019t really like the limelight. In fact, I shy away from it most of the time. Doing all the dirty work behind the scenes is my big reward \u2013 it entertains me. For a time, it also entertains me that the top banana gets all the glory. I can be a very supportive Ampersand Man. But eventually, being second banana stops being amusing to me, and somewhere down the road, I leave Tennille to do the solo act while I, the Captain, sail on alone.<\/p>\n
This epiphany surfaced only recently. After some copious amounts of wine, I said to Kat out of the blue: \u201cI don\u2019t want to be Captain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kat was taken aback. She said, “But I thought you loved being a Captain.”<\/p>\n
“Captain,” I relied. Not “A<\/em> Captain.”<\/p>\n “Morgan?” She said, still not getting what I was getting at.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, the Tennille one,\u201d I replied. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be Ampersand Man anymore.<\/p>\n Kat was quick to reassure me that neither of us came after the ampersand in our relationship, largely because we don\u2019t have an Ampersand Marriage.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t be Ampersand Man if I won\u2019t let you,\u201d she said laughing. \u201cI don\u2019t want top billing. I want equal billing.\u201d<\/p>\n Wow, now there\u2019s a concept. I didn\u2019t even know that was an option. There’s no top banana. The pendulum swings back and forth effortlessly and flawlessly. It all depends on the situation, our individual needs and often, who feels like taking the reins at the moment.<\/p>\n I have to say, this is pretty cool. It\u2019s also kind of scary, too. As much as I loathed being pushed into the Ampersand Man role without being asked, being in an equal relationship carries a lot of responsibility and I actually have to participate.<\/p>\n Still, it\u2019s way better than being Ampersand Man. I wished I had learned that this kind of thing was possible years ago \u2013 this equality in a relationship. Being Ampersand Man carried a price, not only in terms of time, effort and money, but heartache as well. Plus I wouldn\u2019t have had to tell people that I had been institutionalized in Florida for eight years, suffering from temporary insanity. I never would have ampersanded my way to Floriduh in the first place.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all wishful thinking, of course. I was Ampersand Man nearly half my life. That\u2019s a lot of time in ampersand land. But as Kat is quick to remind me, we don\u2019t get the luxury of being able to see very far down the road in our journey here on Earth. We only get to take a peek now and then; otherwise we\u2019re too focused on the immediate twists and turns facing us. The big turns, the hard rights or lefts that take us in an entirely new direction, remain hidden from us until it\u2019s time to take them.<\/p>\n I\u2019m just glad the Ampersand Man years are behind me. My cohort in crime won\u2019t let me ampersand, and though I don\u2019t know where this crazy road is leading me, I do know that I have a new sign on the road to keep a wary eye out for. It will have a large circle with a slash through it, over the large ampersand. No more ampersands for me, until they are in written form.<\/p>\n In the Emerald City, trying desperately to pry the \u2018&\u2019 key off of my Mac Air.<\/p>\n – Robb<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you ever noticed that it\u2019s always Batman & Robin, never Robin & Batman? In life, there always seems to be a need for a top banana in an act, the one who comes before the ampersand. And then there\u2019s that fellow who is on the south side of the ampersand, the one I like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-lessons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5480"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5531,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480\/revisions\/5531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}