Do Odies Become Garfield?

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I was preparing a laundry list of things to do on a Monday morning that included some exasperating tasks on a bulleted list: edits on a marketing email, submitting events to online calendars, crafting written material for a digital app -- the not-so-fun side of working in digital media. 


“Broad strokes only on Mondays.” My colleague Brook told me as we chatted briefly about our day. Brook, which is not his real name, is a middle-aged man who has seen the bowels of hell and thus is immune to the things that can normal people get riled up over. He has the beautiful ability to act indifferent where I soak up emotions like a QVC special edition large sponge the size of an arm. Perhaps that’s why Brook and I work well together. He’s also one of my emotional goalposts, I would love to more often exercise his tepid ‘meh-ness.’ 


I like to believe the benefit Brook gets from me is my unflinching optimism. It’s steadfast, but not toxic like a cauldron of hot syrup poured over a LEGO village set, suffocating the plastic townspeople for the sake of ‘being happy.’ I’m sure I’m like a small boost, think Five Hour Energy but change the hour for a minute, and energy for ‘vibes.’


When I bought my home in 2020, one of the first things I did was paint a mural in my foyer called Positivity is Upward. The mural isn’t that complicated since I can’t paint or draw (talents I’ve yet to acquire -- nay, may never acquiesce). The mural is four colorful beams that get wider as they advance upward. Three arrows created with negative space are located at the top of the beams, each arrow pointing upward. At the bottom of the beams are downward-pointing arrows. It’s a daily reminder that negativity helps balance us, yet it is always positivity that drives change and success.


“Sorry, I have aged into becoming Garfield,” Brook told me that same day. Sometimes I faced his realism with my idealism, like Athens and Sparta at war except if they retired swords and shields and just spoke about their world views (or, city-state views). But Brook’s comment made me wonder if we’re all aging into Garfield. Am I Garfield? The physical answer: no, except I do have a robust frame. And like Garfield, I justify it as ‘huskiness.’ 


I started to conduct a checklist of Garfield’s notorious personality traits and compared them against my own. We both enjoy sleeping. Without my eight hours I become a massive [enter explicative here]. I don’t mind lasagna, but I do love Italian food. I just happen to prefer tortellini and chicken parmigiana over noodles with ricotta. Garfield hates Mondays, but I don’t mind Mondays. If anything, Mondays can be easy considering the world seems to slug on by that day. 


I’m not as lazy as Garfield -- at least not on the surface. I work hard when it comes to things I care about. But my kitchen sink fills up with dishes, clothes get tossed into laundry baskets (yes, multiple), and the general disarray of my house would argue that I am, at the very least, selectively lazy. And like Garfield, I am a king of sass. I have to watch myself more often than not because there are very limited filters in place. And those filters are so sheer, it’s like filtering gas with cheesecloth. 


So I’m partially Garfield, but does that make me more like Odie? For those not familiar with the Garfield canon, Odie is the non-speaking happy dog. Garfields would describe Odie as obnoxious, but most would describe him as lovable and a bit stupid. As I considered Brook’s statement, it implied that maybe at one time he was an Odie. So do all current Garfields start as Odies? As we age and lose innocence and naivety, do we replace them with dislike and cantankerousness? 


Recently social media abounded with a string of reliability to another cartoon character: Squidward from SpongeBob Squarepants. As a character, Squidward is the grounding grouch. While the rest of Bikini Bottom traffics in pedantic pedestrian wildness or stupidity beseeching the customers you might expect to see dining in at a fast-food restaurant, Squidward eschews the mold with sassy comments, the preference of solitude, and an unflinching reminder of his reality. 


Squidward could be described as an antagonist in SpongeBob Squarepants. He usually is the focus of pain in situations and occasionally will sabotage characters (Although his attempt to prove 'the customer is always right' is wrong and thus becomes a guest at the Krusty Krab Hotel is peak beautiful insolence). At other times, Squidward is just trying to exist. Which to the child audience means that he’s ripe to be bugged. 


But one episode of SpongeBob Squarepants stands out -- Squidville. Squidward moves to Tentacle Acres, a community filled with squids like himself. At first, it’s the best decision he could make accompanied by clarinet practice, cycling, and canned bread. But the monotony of the experience takes a toll on Squidward who quickly rebels, flying out of the village on a leaf blower. 
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Adulting came with things I expected yet was unprepared for. I had to fail my way upward into responsibilities. And that came with disbelief, exasperation, and, let’s be honest, a somewhat bleak reality that I need to be financially sound which is a lot of pressure in your twenties when you’re living quarter-paycheck to half-paycheck. 


It’s easy to evolve into Garfield under these conditions. But it’s important to recognize that it’s even more crucial to retain Odie-like or Spongebob-like qualities. Losing your ability to have fun, being unable to enjoy simple things, and denying spontaneity is a recipe for a cold life. Even Garfield has changed since its original run. Not only has Garfield lost a bit of weight, but he comes to (somewhat) appreciate Odie and his owner John, who is a middle-ground of Odie and Garfield. 


I’ve always found myself at peace when exercising perspective. So even if I’m more of an Odie than a Garfield or a SpongeBob than a Squidward, I still need a bit of Garfield and Squidward to help me in my decisions, life outlook, and in day-to-day skills. If I was nothing but sheer glee, then what stops me from flying too close to the sun and pulling an Icarus? Yet negativity keeps me grounded on the surface. I’d rather be floating in the sky between the two fates. 


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Matt Hribar is a digital storytelling from Cleveland, Ohio. He is the author of Chastity Shawl & Other Stories and the upcoming Matty Iapen Series. He additionally creates music, podcasts, short videos and films. His short film The Sauce is in festival circuits and will be available to publicly view in 2024. You can follow Matt on social media @hribstar or stay tuned at matthribar.com.