Today I read this sentence in a poem and it struck me funny: I can be had.
“Had” used in this way for me implied “purchased,” as in “the gigolo can be had for $60.” But “being had” also means “was able to be fooled,” as in the revelatory buyer’s remorse epitaph “We’ve been had!”
I think the weird part about this usage is the having seems transitory, like you’re “had” and then you’re let go, mostly because the “had” seems so past tense. But in fact it’s the perfect participle, the equivalent of “you’ve been eaten,” “it has snown,” “the oats were chewn.” You know.
I think one of the stupidest set phrases I know is “Fun was had by all,” or as the British say, "Fun has been had by all."
And so 2009 was also had. Fun was had, anger was had, gladness, regret, the gigolo, the flu and item #43 on the menu at the Thai restaurant with dishes I can't otherwise pronounce.
And, while on the subject of stuff had and abandoned, on New Year’s eve we went to a party where folks re-gifted their unwanted Christmas presents. I took along a pair of duplicate pajamas. (I’d gotten the same ones last year.) And I received a super anonymous soccer trophy! Miles got a huge paper-maché purple rabbit. Carlo got a black plastic desktop pencil organizer and Luisa got junk sunglasses.
The year that was. I think my accomplishment of 2009 was I finally had a poem accepted that had been rejected by 33 different publications. Most sane people would give up, and I’ve given up and put poems aside before in the face of lesser humiliations. But I really like this particular poem and had some trouble understanding why it needed counseling. What I finally did was change the title, and believe it or not I think that was the hitch.
