Throughout the years, the role of messenger has never been what most people would consider to be a “glamorous” one; however, there have been a few notable exceptions to this rule. There’s Pheidippides–the guy who ran all the way to Athens to deliver news of the victory at Marathon; there’s the Voyager 1 space probe, which even now may be delivering news (via a “golden record”) of a hip, happening, 1977-era Earth to civilizations in the far reaches of our solar system and beyond (won’t those same civilizations be disappointed when they send another probe back just to tell us that disco sucks and we reply “Yeah, we know”?); and then, of course, there’s probably the most famous messenger of all (at least in this country), Paul Revere, who rode through the night to warn of an impending British invasion (no, not the one where the Clash and the Sex Pistols came over to help us figure out that disco sucked–the other one). At first glance, you might think that these three–a Greek, a Colonial, and a machine–have nothing at all in common, but upon closer inspection it becomes obvious that all three share in one very defining characteristic: not one of them was a child.
How do I know this? Well, they all faithfully delivered the messages they were charged with, didn’t they? This means that no children could possibly have been involved, because if they had been, then not only would we all still be drinking tea and eating crumpets, but we would also still be wondering how that whole thing at Marathon ever turned out (and, quite possibly, still be listening to disco).
It isn’t just your average child’s tendency to simply forget to deliver a message that brings me to this conclusion–you know, the way that a phone message intercepted by a child has about as much chance of reaching its intended recipient as a note in a bottle tossed into the open ocean would. No, what I’m talking about is the fact that any piece of news that is delivered by a child suffers from the seemingly contradictory maladies of being both terribly truncated and extremely meandering. Take the Paul Revere story, for example: if my daughter Clementine had been in charge of relaying the warning it would have gone something like this:
Clementine (casually sauntering up): So, um, yeah, it’s by land.
Anxious Townspeople: What?
Clementine: They’re gonna come by land.
A.T.: Who are?
Clementine: I dunno. Whoever’s coming, I guess.
A.T.: Who told you this?
Clementine: A lantern.
A.T.: A what?
Clementine: You know, one of those light thingys.
A.T.: Yes, we know what a lantern is; but who was holding the lantern?
Clementine: I dunno.
A. T. (Giving up): Well, I guess if it’s important they’ll shine back.
It’s enough to make you think that maybe all those stories you hear about the tyrant kings of old “shooting the messenger” were not so much about their disappointment with the message, but rather their vexation at the way the message was delivered.
Either that, or they were just cranky from all that disco.