The Cosmic Baker's Sense of Humor

It's really pretty easy to spot whether a person is overdone or underdone. Overdone individuals tend to be super organized, punctual and generally kind of futsy. Underdones are creative, laidback and a little batty. If they have any sense of humor, the unders tend toward slapstick, banana peels and sight gags while the overs prefer irony and black humor. John Belushi was underdone; Jerry Seinfeld is overdone.

There's a wide range of doneness -- from burnt to crispy at one end and from raw to doughy at the other; the extremes being what keep the shrinks and the courts in business. Overdones talk to themselves; underdones hold conversations with invisible friends. Underdones smell the roses; overdones smell the furniture polish. Both overdones and underdones come in a variety of flavors -- some with raisins, others with nuts; some are spicy, others are bland; some are white and some are dark. All of them think they are done to perfection.

Politics and ideology have nothing to do with doneness. Bush '43, McCain and Obama are underdone; Cheney, Hillary and Ralph Nader are overdone.

Overdones remember their parents' admonitions about early birds, timely stitches, pennies saved and fools rushing in. Underdones recall sayings such as only living once, better late than never, nothing ventured nothing gained and not fixing it if it ain't broke.

High school principals, landlords and corporate recruiters favor overdones; talent scouts, feature writers and venture capitalists look for underdones.

Generally, people don't want underdones doing brain surgery, designing bridges or commanding nuclear submarines. Likewise, we're probably better off not letting overdones do human genome research, sit on the Supreme Court or coach Little League teams. If you're being audited, having your teeth cleaned or getting a loan approved at the bank, it's your lucky day if you run into an underdone. On the other hand, if you're getting your brakes worked on, hiring a financial consultant or having your parachute packed, you probably want an overdone.

Doneness has a lot to do with whom you chose for your parents. It's pretty hard not to bake too long if you dad was the president of the local bank and your mom was a charter member of the Daughters of the Broom up the Ass. Of course there's always those black sheep who manage to slip out of the oven when no one's looking and end up working as street mimes, or even worse, as columnists.

You can pretty much figure on ending up underdone if you're the progeny of a traveling rock star and a topless dancer; or if your parents were the first ones the cops checked with anytime they found an exotic animal lose in town. The combination of being left to your own devices at an early age and being around a lot of adults smoking funny cigarettes have a tendency to bring out peoples' more bizarre inclinations.

Most conflicts at work come down to over or under doneness. If your coworkers are overdones and you're underdone, regardless of your brilliant insights, sense of humor and out-of-the-box solutions, they'll get on your case because you are constantly late, don't comply with management memos and can never find your computer codes.

Overdones, out of their element in creative enterprises such as universities or the entertainment field, can't comprehend how any work can get accomplished with such mayhem and disorder.

The biggest problem comes when overdones and underdones convince themselves they can fall in love and actually live with one another under the same roof. The spontaneity, irreverence and zaniness which were so endearing and exciting as young lovers become maddening irresponsibility to the overdone partner after a few years. And the stability, precision and personal attention which were welcomed as thoughtfulness turn into suffocating obsessiveness to the underdone mate.

Underdones intuit what they need out of a partnership, but being oven-challenged they almost never voluntarily rebake themselves to perfection. It's usually up to the overdone partner -- as the 'organized' one -- to figure out what needs to be done in order to save the relationship; most often requiring that some of his or her crusty edges be scraped off so the pieces can fit together with fewer abrasions.

A world of only underdones would be chaotic; a world of only overdones would be boring.