That Meme I might have invented once......

I like to write.  I try to keep my banter interesting.  When I talk I sound about the same, although decades of spousal eyebrow raising has trained me to be a little "less" interesting in conversation.  Most of the time.  But it would still stand to reason that given enough years I would come up with some phrase - written or spoken - that would catch on as a commonplace saying....or a silly internet meme.

Well, maybe.

The movie Up is a marvelous piece of work.  Seeing it again recently I was reminded that it made popular the phrase "Cone of Shame" for the plastic collar that dogs are sometimes forced to wear.  But I was using this phrase long before the movie came out in 2009.  And I think, just maybe, I was the originator of the phrase Cone of Shame.



Here's the case.

1. We had a Golden Retriever/Yellow Lab mix named Rosy whose life was unfortunate. Long story, but she had to wear The Cone often.  She lived from 1996 to 2008.  I have a very solid memory of calling the device The Cone of Shame in that time period.

2. The main creative mind behind Up is a certain Pete Docter.  While it is possible that some other writer was involved I assume it was Mr. Docter who put "Cone of Shame" into the script.

3. And.....there is a shaky connection between Mr. Docter and myself.

It involves my Aunt Connie.  She is a musician of considerable talent and the long time director of a Youth Symphony that Pete Docter was in.  I think Connie also taught him in music lessons and later had his two sisters in the Symphony.  So....does it work to imagine that Connie, on one of her visits to rustic Wisconsin, heard me use the phrase, then repeated it in the hearing of the highly creative Pete Docter?

Ah....the dates are so close, so very close.

Pete Docter was hired right out of college, starting at Pixar in1989. He wrote the first draft of Up in 2004. Of course he was living in California then. But did he come back and visit old friends?  And, I suppose we could toss in one additional link to the chain....I figure one of the younger siblings?  Or perhaps I was even using this phrase earlier than I remember, with our previous mutt Bezoar the Wonder Dog.     

Alas, I have to concede the possibility that the meme went the other way.  Could Connie have gotten it from her precocious young student and mentioned it to me?  I suppose I should credit what is plausibly the real origin of "Cone of Shame".  Pixar actually hired a veterinarian/animal behaviour expert to consult on the film.  Ian Dunbar sounds like he has a very interesting career and it is possible that he and I independently came up with the phrase.