Collecting Pez dispensers.  Making music.  Painting.

It’s the useless things we humans do that elevate us above the beasts of the field.

Dancing.  Playing cards.  Flying kites.

It’s the things we don’t have to do – more than the things we do have to do – which define us.  We all have to eat, sleep, work and poop.  But we don’t all have to build sand castles, make lanyards, or collect David Bowie records.

It’s in the useless that our individuality shines.

In my wife Linda’s case, her individuality shines through 52 Pez dispensers.  Here they are, by category.

…even a missing ear can’t dampen Mickey’s spirits.

…like Jack Black said at the Oscars: “Each year I do one DreamWorks project then take all the money to the Oscars and bet it on Pixar!”

If it’s a pastel one piece and it’s not 1974, it must be Easter.

….my favorite non-holiday holiday…note the scariest costume of all third from the left.

….because one Speedy Gonzalez is never enough.

…a clever candy dispensing device you are.

…still the best Odd Couple since Oscar Madison and Felix Unger.

…I identify with Felix.  All Virgos do.

…and while I much prefer SpongeBob, Mr. Krabs and Squidward, Patrick is the only one my wife has.

…I’m so conflicted: less candy, but cuter proportions.

…has anybody besides me and my family seen “Muppet Treasure Island” with Tim Curry?  It’s a damn fine film – better even, in my opinion, than the “Muppets” movie currently in theaters.  It’s Tim Curry.  The man chews scenery like a ball player chews chaw.

Here’s a category you’ll never figure out:

…these six are what were left when I asked my wife to pick her very favorite Pez dispenser.  She couldn’t do it – she couldn’t pick just one.   But after much hemming and hawing, tears, recriminations, slights, cold silences, dirty looks and outrageous pressure from me -“Quick, honey, the light’s fading – hurry or the picture will suck!” – she narrowed it down to these six.

But that wasn’t good enough for me.  I had to turn up the heat: after threatening to cook dinner, I got her to narrow it down some more…

…and finally, after saying “‘ello guv’ner” several times in what has got to be the worst Cockney accent ever, she caved in and chose the one Pez dispenser she’d keep if the Nazis made her pick only one…

…I think my wife and Jack Black would get along.

…when I asked her why Rex was her number one favorite, she said, “Because he makes me happy and I like dinosaurs.”

Yes!

An empty candy dispenser in the shape of a long extinct lizard?  Let’s hear it for the gloriously useless!