Well.  I found that in my e-box this morning and I'm not quite sure what to make of it.  Betsy is the only person I've met online whom I've gone on to meet in person.  She isn't merely sharing her psychotic visions of me like those three girls who've been flooding me with email ever since I allegedly appeared to them in a cloud of blather over Medjugorje, Yugoslavia.  She's actually seen and heard me and my simpering face up close.  When Betsy says I might resemble Tigger, I have to consider the possibility that she knows what she's talking about.
     Still.  Until last Sunday when the friend I ran into at the movies first suggested I looked like an overfluffed cartoon character, I'd not much thought of myself in that way.  When I was on Prozac, I thought I looked like Kevin Costner.  Before that, I sometimes suspected I might be mistaken for Don Knotts or Wally Cox depending upon whether the person doing the mistaking thought I was still alive or not.  Most often the featureless pawns of a cheap chess set have come to mind when I've tried to visualize what I must look like to others.
     Now everything has been thrown up into the air.
     I suddenly feel like one of those stroke-stricken people I read about recently in "Phantoms in the Brain" left so confused about their bodies that they actually try to convince their doctor that the paralyzed arm at their side actually belongs to their brother.
 

      "Honey, do I really look like Tigger?"
     "Only since you've grown your beard back and let your hair go wild again.  All that fur has the effect of making your eyes look even beadier than they really are."
     "Oh."

     All of which reminds me of a story that I've probably told before but which aged flusterment grants me the right to tell again.
     I've never been sure of my ancestral heritage.  For a long time I thought Birtcher was German.  That led me to be on guard for any Nazi tendencies that might emerge.  My need to keep things meticulously in order struck me as Prussian.  My fondness for dachshunds seemed proof of my mid-European origins.  Any free-spirited artistic impulses merited a knowing wink in the direction of Bohemia.  Those childhood dreams starring Marlene Dietrich in a spiky helmet which made it so hard for me to enter puberty with a straight face seemed to make sense once I tentatively concluded that my surname was a Bavarian variation of the more commonly known Nincompoop.
    Then I discovered that Birtcher was far more likely to be of British origins than German.  Almost instantly I felt that I finally understood my deep-seated desire to keep a stiff upper lip while ruling an empire on which the sun never set as Herman's Hermits blared in the background on me bloody telly.
     The point is this: I'm a highly impressionable laddie (or maybe Hansel) with few natural defenses when it comes to the power of suggestion.  If people think I resemble Tigger, I'm going to end up being Tigger whether I really was before or not.
     And that means I'll probably be sued by Disney for copyright infringement. 
     And then lose the case the moment I go bouncing into the courtroom with a big, stupid grin on my face....

     "What are you in for?"
     "I killed a man."
     "What are you in for?"
     "Armed robbery, kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon."
     "What are you in for?"
     "Oh, the wonderful thing about Tiggers
      Is Tiggers are wonderful things!

     Their tops are made out of rubber
     The bottoms are made out of springs

     They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy
     Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun

     But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is
     I'm the only one!

    The wonderful thing about Tiggers
     Is Tiggers are wonderful chaps

     They're loaded with vim and vigor
     They love to leap in your laps

     They're jumpy, bumpy, clumpy, thumpy
     Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun

     But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is
     I'm the only one

     Tiggers are cuddly fellows
     Tiggers are awfully sweet

     Everyone else is jealous
     That's why I repeat

     The wonderful thing about Tiggers
     Is Tiggers are wonderful things

     Their tops are made out of rubber
     Their bottoms are made out of springs

     They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy
     Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun

     But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is
     I'm the only one

     IIIIIII'mmmmmm the only one!"
 
 

     I hear visiting day is the first Wednesday of every month, Betsy.  Please come and see me.
     If only to identify my body.