Its not the thing you fling. . .

Its the fling, itself.
I just finished watching another Northern Exposure re run. I don't think I saw this episode the first time around, I would have remembered it. Maggie's mother came to visit, and promptly burnt down her house. And Chris? He spent most of the episode building a catapult. His plan? To 'fling' a cow. Yes, the mooing animal. People kept bringing him cows, he was looking for that one special cow to fling. Then, Ed told him Monty Python already flung a cow. Oh, heartbreak! He almost gave up, until someone pointed out to him that Michelangelo wasn't crying over the Sistine Chapel, and he layed on his back 2.5 years to paint it! Twisted reasoning, but sadly, I understood it. So, inspired, our hero Chris went to Maggie's burnt down house, played "as time goes by" on her burnt piano, then, in the end, flung the piano instead of a cow, saying those fateful words, "Its not the thing you fling, but the fling, itself." Words to live by, people, words to live by.