Waldo....WHERE ARE YOU

When it comes to ranking frustrating things in life, Finding Waldo has to be number one, followed distantly by ‘figuring out the opposite sex.’ Sure Waldo is easy to find most the time, but there is always one picture where it is almost impossible to find him. The most frustrating part of the whole thing is when you realize that 5 year olds, who can’t write their own name, can find him in under a minute and you with your vast intellect are left clueless. The more you look for him, the harder it gets. 5 minutes pass, 14 minutes pass, next thing you know you are thinking of going all Vincent Van Gogh and cutting off your ear. As you search and search you start to go through the 5 stages of Waldo-ism. First is Denial, where you don’t believe that Waldo is actually in the picture. Second is the anger phase, where you curse, yell, and throw the book across the room. The third stage is bargaining. You try to strike a deal with anyone you can find to point out where Waldo is. Of course no one will point him out to you for they either can’t find him or are extremely amused by your ineptitude. The fourth stage is depression. You collapse to the floor in the fetal position moaning and crying. The last stage is acceptance. You realize that you can’t find him and you move on to the next page. The 5 stages of Waldo-ism might seem familiar to you, due to it being the same as the 5 stages of grief. This is by no means a coincidence, for grief is derived from one’s inability to find Waldo in the simplest of settings. Plus, the grief people can’t come up with an original idea, due to them being too focused on their own irreconcilable anguish. So when dabbling in the world of Waldo, I warn you to be careful, for if there was ever a starter drug for extreme pain and heartache, it would start with a question, ‘Where is Waldo???’