The Art of Dusting Yourself Off

This morning after my Pilates class, walking down College, it hit me: Life would be infinitely better — and somehow also worse — if it worked like the cartoons we grew up on.

Think about it.

Every cartoon back then was basically a masterclass in the art of overcomplication.

One simple problem — catch a bird, stop a roadrunner, impress a dame — and suddenly there were blueprints, pulleys, ropes, anvils, saws, bombs with suspiciously long fuses, and enough dynamite to supply a small nation.

(And all somehow delivered overnight — thanks to Acme Corporation, the Amazon Prime of cartoon crime.)

Naturally, everything backfired.

Every. Single. Time.

Instead of catching their target, the trap would bounce through space and time like a drunk pinball, before inevitably exploding directly in the face of whoever set it up.

Cue soot.

Cue blinking.

Cue one sad burnt feather floating down from the sky.

Turns out, there’s actually a reason for this.

The classic “chase and fail” formula was inspired by silent film legends like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin — physical comedy that was “impossible but logical,” meaning it made sense… right up until it absolutely didn’t.

The first cartoon to really perfect it? A Wild Hare (1940) — the debut of Bugs Bunny asking “What’s up, Doc?”

It worked so well that characters like Wile E. Coyote were practically built around the idea that plans are destined to explode in your face, just slightly more theatrically than usual.

Sometimes I imagine what life would look like if this physics-defying logic applied to the real world.

If being amazed by someone actually made my eyes pop out of my skull, clatter onto the sidewalk, while my tongue unraveled from my mouth and went skittering halfway down Ossington like a drunk party horn.

(Imagine trying to keep your cool on a first date like that. “Oh, don’t mind me, that’s just my soul physically leaving my body because you suggested sharing a Brussels sprouts plate.”)

If every time I got stressed at work, thick cartoon smoke would pour out of my ears, accompanied by an involuntary “AWOOGA” siren blaring from somewhere deep within me.

If every minor life decision — First dates, job interviews, free samples at Costco — came with a floating thought cloud or a spinning, dramatic question mark over my head.

A literal “?!?” following me around like a bad perfume.

Even the roads would betray me — ending in a gorgeously illustrated highway painted onto a brick wall, just waiting for me to sprint full speed into it, flatten into a pancake, and peel myself off like a looney tune.

Honestly, it would still be a step up from the TTC.

Right now, I’m sitting in a coffee shop on Ossington writing this, watching all the cool people walk by — people with tote bags and sunglasses and tiny headphones, who probably think I’m doing serious work.

Maybe drafting a novel, maybe emailing something important.

Meanwhile, I’m just here, pensively staring at my laptop… dissecting life and cartoons.

The thing is, part of me thinks real life already is a cartoon — just one without the satisfying anvil sound effects.

How many times can you run at something full speed — love, a career move, a free sample at Costco — only to slam face-first into a metaphorical brick wall?

How often does the “perfect plan” boomerang back around to hit you in the face?

And yet, like our soot-covered, eyeball-popping, tongue-flailing animated ancestors, we don’t quit.

We dust ourselves off, pop our metaphorical eyes back in, roll up our tongues, and chase the next ridiculous, possibly impossible thing.

Maybe that’s the real lesson of those Saturday morning cartoons.

Not to avoid failure, but to make it funny, to survive it, to come back swinging with a new trap — even if the next one involves a suspicious amount of dynamite and a catapult you built yourself at 2AM.

Because honestly, if you can survive your own Acme-level disasters, you’re basically unstoppable.