Okay, name the Seven Dwarfs.

I’ll give you a little time.

Pretend you’re listening to one of those instrumental songs that you hear during a quiz show when there is some thinking required.

Remember that Snow White was not one of the Seven Dwarfs.

Time’s up!

The Seven Dwarfs are Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy and Sneezy.

If you’re like most of us, you were not able to name all of them, but I’ll bet most of you remembered Grumpy.

Why is that?

It’s probably because we all can understand Grumpy because we have all been grumpy. We’ve all probably been grumpy at least once every day.

When I was a teenager, I could have been at least six of the Seven Dwarfs, not only because of my size, but because of my moods. I alternated between being Bashful, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy and Sneezy. I never tried being Doc. I think he was a little too smart for me.

I was typically sleepy when my mind should have been taken up with study.

I tried being bashful, but I wasn’t good at it.

The sneezy part came in when I tried to convince my father that I was allergic to hard work.

That proved I was dopey and made my father grumpy.

Dopey and grumpy were my strongest traits.

I was good at being dopey and grumpy. It came natural to me.

My mother could put up with me being dopey, but she wasn’t about to put up with me being grumpy.

There were days when I felt a true need to be grumpy. I didn’t need a reason. I’d wake up on the wrong side of the bed and would be bound and determined to spend my day mired in the depths of grumpiness.

It was difficult to rescue me from my grumphood. I was stubborn. If Stubborn had been one of the Seven Dwarfes instead of Doc, I could have been all of them. My stubbornness, depending upon which side of my family you were talking to, was blamed upon my German, Swedish, English or Welsh heritage.

Fortunately for me, my mother was just as stubborn in some ways as I was. The only difference was that she could blame her selective bull-headedness upon only her German or Swedish ancestry.

The problem was that while I thought Dopey and Grumpy were wonderful individuals to emulate; my mother thought only Happy was worth imitating.

So there were those showdown days.

Days when I was going to be grumpy, no matter what. Days when my mother was going to make sure I was wearing a happy face, no matter what.

The problem with being happy is that we sometimes forget to let our face know that we’re happy. But when we’re grumpy, our face becomes a neon sign advertising the fact.

My mother would make it her immediate goal to change my attitude and would concentrate her efforts on making me laugh.

They were some classic battles. Grumpy versus happy.

My mother believed that happiness was both wisdom and riches. She believed that I would seldom be happier than I expected to be.

I could tell when my mother was on a mission to save me from my grumpiness. I would set my phasers to stun. My mother would put her deflector shields in place. I would try to ignore her.

You couldn’t ignore my mother. She was much too nice and too goofy to be ignored.

There’s a big difference between being goofy and being dopey. Goofy was a talking dog and Dopey was one of the Seven Dwarfs.

Mom would buzz around me like a bee around a yellow flower. She’d make faces.

She’d tell the stupidest jokes. She’d tell funny family stories, especially those who depicted her as the fool.

She’d smile, giggle, laugh, chortle and guffaw.

I’d try not to laugh.

It was the last thing on earth that I wanted to do. I wanted to be grumpy. My face would nearly crack in an effort to keep a smile from crossing my lips.

Grumpy was no match for Happy. I’d laugh.

My mother would win and teach me in the process that a happy person makes others happy.

My mother would laugh and say, &uot;You found a tee-hee’s nest with a ha-ha’s egg in it.&uot;

Thanks to my mother, I have advanced from being a dopey and grumpy teenager to becoming a dopey and happy adult.

(Hartland resident Al Batt writes a column for the Tribune each Wednesday and Sunday.)