Once in a generation, a word is coined to enrich the human condition.
One lean addition to the lexicon illuminates the mysteries of existence.
The great term of our time is “derpy.”
Derpy is the night you and your grandpa conspire to try every extant flavor of Cheez-Its.
Derpy is the potato that springs forth shaped precisely like Paul Rudd.
Derpy is the song at the bottom of the Billboard chart that puts the bubbles at the top of your glass.
Derpy is the tongue that forgets to retract, the laugh that bounces too long, the dork who saves the world by dorking.
Derpy is un-self-conscious exuberance multiplied by absurdity, minus every fragment of cool.
Derpy is almost a synonym for Derby, but here we reach the limits of language. Like a unified theory of physics, an all-enfolding word exceeds our grasp. Like light itself, Derby is too many things to defer to definition.
Derby is wave and particle, a giant sun hat of electrons spinning and spilling onto the beach.
Derby is the roller rink where all the photons skate and squeal.
Derby is protein for a frail world, caffeine for too-cool calm, the dunderhead who wonders where everyone’s wonderment went.
Derby is afflicted with feline leukemia virus, the fanged foe we call FeLV. In another time, on another page of the dictionary, Derby would have been “hopeless.” In a world of too few beginnings, an acronym can spell the end.
But Tabby’s Place hoards beginnings like writers hoard good pens. We are derpy with loyalty, pancaked by promises and sticky with the syrup of our own words. We have thrown our hats into the burning ring of love. We have erased “euthanasia” even when the ink looked permanent.
We have rolled out the red carpet for Derby.
He has proven the power and the limits of “derpy.”
Derby is heroically undignified, all big buffoon energy at the sight of birds. Offer him a spring toy, a single micro-slinky, and he will erupt in carbonation, reckless gratitude splashing everywhere.
Dip him in lime sulfur, the loathsome and necessary treatment for ringworm, and he will dunk you in his own patience, too peaceful to be angry, too derpy to be offended.
If he had a more limited spiritual vocabulary, Derby would sulk. Between his diagnosis and the dipping, the fast changes and the slow dinner deliveries, a lesser beast might declare the day grey (and use colorful language to do so).
But even if breakfast tastes like balderdash, Derby believes there may be a blueberry at the bottom of the bowl. Even if the clouds conspire to scowl across the hours, Derby is silly enough to sing songs about the sun.
Even if “hopeless” is the reasonable term, Derby is childish enough to rearrange the letters on the fridge.
Even if “THE END” is written in caps, Derby pulls on his dunce cap and flexes “foolish” hope.
But declare him “derpy,” and you will have only just begun.
He may delight in the jester’s cap, but Derby is a cat of many hats. The wiggle-child is also a wizard, a merry mage whose silliness breaks the spell of gloom. The cat on roller skates is also a mobile medical unit, healing sullen moods and calling everyone “dude” until they remember to party.
The hop-toad who leapfrogged “hopeless” is also a prince, a promise to the promisers themselves.
Derby is so full of light, he forbids us to take ourselves seriously. He is so full of permission to live, he steamrolls the hundred tiny deaths in any given day. He is so grateful to be here, he can’t find the word to express it. So instead, he finds the sad and the sullen. He finds the cool and the shivering.
He finds that a cat with an awful acronym and an ill-written immune system can save us from our own syntax.
He delights in all directions, and he turns our lights back on.
Words fail to capture him, but Derby has captivated us.
He is “derpy” at its dreamiest, and every good word besides.