Clever Magazine, Vol III, #8 "Where's My Trophy? " (www.clevermag.com)

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Where's My Trophy?

Hal Reichardt

I'd settle for runner-up!

I never get an award or a trophy and I'm starting to get a little put out about that. It's embarrassing to sit in a room full of 50 people while a cavalcade of coworkers gets called up to the front by the big kahuna to receive trophy clocks and then not hear your name called. Come on. If you are already buying 48 clocks it can't cost that much more to round it off and get 50. The company janitor would appreciate it, and so would I. I didn't realize that the manager at our workplace was a Zen master, but how else do you explain his ability to award himself the last trophy? (I've never seen a man shake his own hand before.)

Trophies and clocks are no big deal. That's what everyone says after there is no room left in their cubicle and their older awards start turning up at garage sales. I know about the garage sales because I briefly considered purchasing a trophy this way. After making a few inquires at the engraver's shop I discovered that there is a bustling secondary market in trophies, plaques, and awards of all kinds. People need recognition. If we don't give them their own trophies, we are forcing them to buy someone else's discarded award and have the engraver change the name. But you can't buy a trophy, I told myself. You've got to earn it. That's when I decided to join the Army. It wasn't until after I was discharged four years later that I realized the Army doesn't give out trophies.

The search for recognition doesn't have a beginning, middle, and end. It is a timeless quest for validation. We come into this world without a trophy and God help us if we leave without one. The Egyptians were so concerned about leaving this world without trophies that they built pyramids for all of the pharaoh kings and filled them with every award they could find. This made things difficult for the average Egyptian. They spent a lot of time with one hand on their forehead to shield their eyes
from the rays of the sun while they searched for the trophies that kept disappearing from their bedrooms. This started a dance craze called the Egyptian that survived for thousands of years, until some American teenagers got a hold of it in the 1960s. (A few kids got the Egyptian confused with another dance called the mashed potato and ended up in the hospital.)

By the time the twentieth century rolled around the big guns realized that they had to be more civic minded about their trophies. Instead of a pyramid with only one room, they started building skyscrapers like the Empire State Building. This way they could look at their trophy from just about any vantage point in town, but could also rent out space in it or even go inside for a cocktail. On top of all that they could claim that they helped pull us out of the great depression. Walter Chrysler got so carried away with his skyscraper trophy that he put huge hubcaps around the edge of one of the top floors of the Chrysler building. (Just let the boys on the lower east side try to steal those babies.)

When automobiles became fashionable ego boosters, trophies started to pop up on the hoods. Rolls Royce has a nice one of a gallant lady in a long flowing dress. She looks like a goddess parting the clouds out in advance of the cloud people. People in the general population began to imitate this by buying their own trophies to stick on the dashboards of their Fords and Chevrolets. Of course the trouble with this whole advance is that these trophies were not earned. You can't just pick up a trophy at the auto parts store and call it a day.

I am thinking in all earnestness of starting a society for people without trophies to protest the discrimination we all suffer. Never again do I want to have to face an employment application that includes a checkbox which says "Have you ever won a trophy or award" right underneath the entry
for "Have you ever been arrested or convicted of a felony." I am also organizing a new soccer league for aging baby boomers called macro-soccer. We are all going to play soccer until we either die of heart attacks or make it to Round Table at the end of the season to be knighted by the coach, have a pizza, and receive our hard-earned trophies. This will free up a lot of space in my back yard for that swing set that the kids have been wanting. They never did like the pyramid.