MANDY FLYNN: Well, that’s just fabulous … really fabulously fabulous

It was an intervention, an impromptu one, and as it unfolded on the popular syndicated comedy show I was watching a revelation came to me.

That was me … sort of.

“You’re the boy who cried divine,” one character said to the other, insinuating that he used the word ‘divine’ entirely too much, several times a day to describe anything and everything. How was anyone to know what he truly thought divine if he used it in talking about everything from salt to couture? Surely everything isn’t equally divine.

It goes back, of course, to Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf. A shepherd boy who watched a flock of sheep in a field near a village made all of the villagers rush to his aid several times by crying out, “Wolf! Wolf!” When his neighbors came to help him, he laughed and laughed because he had tricked them and made them run.

One day, however, the wolf really did come. The shepherd boy was very scared and shouted out to the villagers for help. But no one paid attention to him. No one helped him. And the wolf killed the sheep.

The moral to the story: It’s hard to believe a liar even when he speaks the truth.

I don’t use the word divine so much, that I can recall. We do have friends, the Divines, who are quite divine, but I can’t say I’ve ever actually used the word to describe them. Instead of calling something divine, I think I’d more likely say it was wonderful. Or fantastic. Or great. And most probable of all … fabulous.

Fabulous. My name is Mandy and I am the girl who cries fabulous.

“They’re fabulous,” I said of my new boots I got for Christmas.

“It’s fabulous,” I said of my husband’s parmesan chicken.

“These are fabulous,” I said out loud when I found a box of Band-Aids at Target that would perfectly cover the nasty looking wound on my finger.

“How fabulous!” I exclaimed as I finally managed to pull a mass of indescribable grossness out of my clogged bathroom drain.

Boots. Parmesan chicken. Both wonderful and perfectly deserving of the word fabulous. Band-Aids? Hair clogs? Not so much.

It was my daughter who gave me my own impromptu intervention a few weeks ago without even realizing it.

“Do you have practice this afternoon?” I asked and when she said yes, I said, “Fabulous.” “Isn’t it fabulous it’s almost Friday?” I chimed as she picked up her keys, but she didn’t answer.

“Have a fabulous day,” I chirped as she slung her book bag over her shoulder and began her walk out the door to school. Wait… was that an I’m Going To Hit You With This Bag Of Books glare? It was fleeting… but, yes, I think it was. One fabulous too many. I should check myself.

I know people who say all babies are beautiful. I, too, think all babies are beautiful. But if we are being totally honest here, some babies are far less beautiful than others. Some may even as far from beautiful as they can get. But I would never say that. Call it manners. Call me a liar. I stand by my decision to call all babies beautiful. Even if they are not. Which some are not. Really not. Let’s be honest.

But if I call a grown up beautiful, I truly mean it. If I don’t think you’re beautiful, I won’t say anything at all. I might call you divine, but probably not. Or maybe I’ll say you’re fabulous. Which I may or may not think. That you’re fabulous, that is. I have a problem with fabulous, you know. I think cr