The refrain heard around our house while...

The refrain heard around our house while growing up was “Don’t be so melodramatic.” A cut hand? A bruised head? Did the neighbor’s dog lick our right calf, sending us pirouetting with panic into the front door, absolutely certain that we’ll never walk without a limp for the rest of our lives?

“It’s just dirt,” mom used to say. “Don’t be so melodramatic.”

We tried being stoic.

But our melodramatic bent, although never nurtured by others, grew inside us anyway like a runaway weed.

Dark, rainy days. Minor illnesses. Another birthday.

All cause for certain catastrophe.

Finally, we could take no more. Our sighing, which is symptomatic of our condition, was driving us--slowly, inexorably, like the drop-drop-dropping of water on a POW’s forehead-- out of our mind.

Oh, dear. That was a bit melodramatic.

So we saw a doctor, who confirmed that we were a textbook, classic case of Type M personality.

“We suspect it’s caused by the Melodramatica bacillus, “ he told us. “Though we don’t know for sure.”

Is there no cure?

“Plenty of rest,” he said. “And stay away from Woody Allen films. There’s also a mental exercise that I recommend. Since the root cause of melodrama in a person is (and here he coughed) . . . an overdeveloped sense of one’s own importance, Type M people could benefit greatly from pretending that they’re other people, or even things.”

Hmm.

So we tried it. We sat in a darkened room and pretended that we were . . . what? A plane. That’s it. We’ll pretend to be a plane for starters.

And if we are a plane, where would we like to be?

At the “Celebration of Victory” air fair, taking place from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. today at the Museum of Flying at Santa Monica Airport. Tickets are $5 adults, $4 seniors and children. For information call (310) 392-8222.

Then again, as a plane we’d probably crash, splintering into a jillion pieces.

Instead, let’s be a drum.

Here we are then, in our mind’s eye: not plain, but not too fancy, either. We’re surrounded by a bunch of men. One of them, a white-haired gent, is wearing a godawful looking vest. It’s Robert Bly, whose efforts to help men get in touch with the Wild Man within always seem to include the primal pounding of a drum.

Bly’s holding a five-day men’s conference beginning Saturday through Jan. 30 at 7121 W. Manchester Blvd., Los Angeles. For programs, events and fees call (310) 337-7937.

Enough. Now we’re a camera. And the fruits of our labor are “Companereras de Mexico: Women Photograph Women” at the Social and Public Art Resource Center, 685 Venice Blvd., Venice. The opening reception is from 4 to 6 p.m. today. Admission is free. For information call (310) 822-9560.