When I was little, I would be fascinated by the toys that weren't mine.
Like the ones at the dentist, or Nana's.
In retrospect, they weren't the greatest toys. Nope, in fact, they were usually much older than I was or were some strange collection that adults had held on to in the hopes of keeping elementary school-aged kids occupied while the adults chatted or a sibling was taking their turn under the white hot lights of the dental hygenist.
But precisely because they weren't my usual toys, they held an alluring but elusive appeal.
By far my favorite was a stuffed rabbit I named Shy Rabbit, for reasons that are lost to the mists of time.
Now Shy Rabbit is another little girl's favorite toy. My own collection of toys I keep in the house consists of some stuffed animals that I can't part with and my huge sack of My Little Ponies. When I babysit these two sisters, I set up the ponies in the spare bedroom and let them go to town. But the littlest girl inevitably seeks out Shy Rabbit, wherever he may be.
Even if he's in the forbidden zone upstairs. Once, their parents came over to hang out and the girls were playing in the other room. They asked what was upstairs and I told them our bedroom but it was off limits.
Never tell a kid something is off limits. It will only guarantee they go there.
The adults had stepped outside for a minute and when I opened the door to go inside, I heard a veritable stampede and suddenly both girls were there with their best innocent faces on. But Shy Rabbit clutched in the youngest's hand gave them away.
"Did you girls go upstairs?"
She shakes her head and makes denials while her older sister tries to change the subject.
"Are you sure?"
Vigorous head-nodding is the response.
"How did you get Shy Rabbit? Did he hop downstairs on his own?"
I could see the gears turning in her head as she swiftly contemplated the chances of succeeding at a denial at this stage and was rewarded when she discarded it and in a tiny voice admitted she had gone upstairs.
"But it's so cool up there! Can we play up there?" and Bam! she was off on a tangent, but she couldn't fool me, precocious child! She knew what she was doing, every minute of it.
I can understand the appeal, however.
I wanted so badly, as a kid, the play room the dentist office had.
First of all, the place had a kick ass aquarium in the adult portion of the waiting room. But if you were under 4' feet tall, you could climb up a ladder into a special cubby-like room that was filled with crazy neat old toys. Weird fiber-plastic faded colored blocks that were maybe the forefathers to Legos/Duplos. Random stuffed animals & kids meal toys from fast food restaurants.
Better yet, inside this cubby room in the middle of the wall, was yet another ladder leading to another room above that one, even smaller. They were their own secret worlds that just screamed "No adults allowed!" Plus they had a treasure chest full of goodies and after your visit, if you were good, you got to choose a treasure from the chest.
That dentist really knew how to cater to kids. Even though I dreaded the icky flouride rinses or whatever the hell they were, going to the dentist was exciting because while my sister took her turn under the white hot lights of the hygenist, I got to play in the indoor play house.
And it's strange collection of haphazard but wonderfully strange toys.
Showing posts with label geeklings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geeklings. Show all posts
Friday, March 9, 2012
Thursday, December 15, 2011
She does it too!
I'm relieved to find out that I'm not the only one who wants to torture her (future) kids. I once said that to friends of the Big B's and the wife gave me such a look of horror that to this day, I think she thought I was serious.
My good friend Sarwa* came over the other day with her two children in tow.
Now Sarwa is not anyone I'd have pictured as a mom in high school. She moved to my hometown in 8th grade and was always a bit wild. You couldn't hold this girl still. She could burp louder than anyone I'd ever heard, I mean loud enough to rattle-windowpanes-loud. She was always making strange jokes or doing little dances or making up songs spur of the moment.
Our freshman & sophmore years in high school consisted of us mainly walking around town in our ridiculously huge pants while Sarwa would beat box and make up impromptu love songs and sing them to me.
We had the same names and same last initial, and we reveled in the confusion this caused. Whenever anyone would say our name we'd both scream "WHICH ONE?!?"
We worked at Subway together and our manager hated the fact that he had to write out our entire names to differentiate between us.
I NEVER get nicknames (not counting ones from family) so of course when our little duo was nicknamed it was Sarah & Scary Sarah.
I wasn't scary. At all. She was! We wore the huge pants of the rebellious youth of the time, with pantleg circumferences going as high as 5' around for one pantleg.
(If you're curious as to what pants that large around look like, it's so similar to a skirt you'd barely notice except if one walked with very long strides).
Because of these over-large pants, they often trailed behind us like the train of a gown. In the ever-crowded hallways of our rural school, they would often be stepped on. If someone stepped on Sarwa's pantleg, she would turn around and give them a glare scary enough to make them swallow their gum inadvertently and decide they should take another route to class.
Sarwa has 5 brothers and they love to wrestle, and as a result she is freakishly strong.
Motherly is not a word I would ever use to describe her. She would half-jokingly say all the time that she wasn't going to live to see 21, much less have kids, but we were too close for me to allow her to take that seriously.
If someone put a child in her hands, she would hold it out from her body awkwardly and give a look that would say very eloquently "What am I supposed to do with this?"
So when her first child was born, a lovely boy she referred to in the womb as her "parasite", I was highly interested to see how motherhood would take her.
The first time I saw her giving her son a raspberry on his belly I about fell over.
Sarwa just doesn't DO that!
Cut to a few years later and Sarwa had a baby girl this spring. I hadn't seen much of her since she lives up north a ways and schedules are hard to coincide, but we make an effort to hang out at least every couple of months.
So she comes over with 3-yr old son and 6 month old daughter in tow. She is a sweet, sweet child who allows me to hold her without fuss. Sarwa's son is another matter...in order to get a hug from him, I have to fake-cry which always makes me feel guilty, like I'm causing the need for future therapy (*sob* "...and my mom would have this strange lady come over who talked too loudly and would cry until I hugged her, but I didn't really want to hug her...)
I'm a pillow freak (inherited from my mom I think) and so our sectional couch (also inherited from mom) has about a gagillion pillows on it. Her son is having a grand old time burying himself underneath them and exploding out of them periodically while Sarwa & I chat and catch up.
Then she does something that makes me realize that wild and crazy Sarwa is still there, somewhere underneath the diaper changing pad and breast pump.
She grabs her son's ankles, yanking them out from under him so he falls flat on his back on the couch. She puts her hand over his mouth and begins tickling him mercilessly, while he squeals in obvious delight, his heels pounding away on the cushion.
At my shocked expression, she calmly tells me, "He shrieks so loudly I have to cover his mouth or the neighbors think I'm murdering him."
YES!
SHE won't judge me when I playfully torture my kids. She'll join right in!
And to the parents that don't understand that "torture" is an expression of love?
I feel sorry for you. You've never had the joy of embarrassing your kids or tickling them while they squeal in delight. Try it sometime...it's good for the soul. At least I always enjoyed some loving torture growing up.
*Names have been changed...slightly. But I'm not fooling anyone, am I?
My good friend Sarwa* came over the other day with her two children in tow.
Now Sarwa is not anyone I'd have pictured as a mom in high school. She moved to my hometown in 8th grade and was always a bit wild. You couldn't hold this girl still. She could burp louder than anyone I'd ever heard, I mean loud enough to rattle-windowpanes-loud. She was always making strange jokes or doing little dances or making up songs spur of the moment.
Our freshman & sophmore years in high school consisted of us mainly walking around town in our ridiculously huge pants while Sarwa would beat box and make up impromptu love songs and sing them to me.
We had the same names and same last initial, and we reveled in the confusion this caused. Whenever anyone would say our name we'd both scream "WHICH ONE?!?"
We worked at Subway together and our manager hated the fact that he had to write out our entire names to differentiate between us.
I NEVER get nicknames (not counting ones from family) so of course when our little duo was nicknamed it was Sarah & Scary Sarah.
I wasn't scary. At all. She was! We wore the huge pants of the rebellious youth of the time, with pantleg circumferences going as high as 5' around for one pantleg.
(If you're curious as to what pants that large around look like, it's so similar to a skirt you'd barely notice except if one walked with very long strides).
Because of these over-large pants, they often trailed behind us like the train of a gown. In the ever-crowded hallways of our rural school, they would often be stepped on. If someone stepped on Sarwa's pantleg, she would turn around and give them a glare scary enough to make them swallow their gum inadvertently and decide they should take another route to class.
Sarwa has 5 brothers and they love to wrestle, and as a result she is freakishly strong.
Motherly is not a word I would ever use to describe her. She would half-jokingly say all the time that she wasn't going to live to see 21, much less have kids, but we were too close for me to allow her to take that seriously.
If someone put a child in her hands, she would hold it out from her body awkwardly and give a look that would say very eloquently "What am I supposed to do with this?"
So when her first child was born, a lovely boy she referred to in the womb as her "parasite", I was highly interested to see how motherhood would take her.
The first time I saw her giving her son a raspberry on his belly I about fell over.
Sarwa just doesn't DO that!
Cut to a few years later and Sarwa had a baby girl this spring. I hadn't seen much of her since she lives up north a ways and schedules are hard to coincide, but we make an effort to hang out at least every couple of months.
So she comes over with 3-yr old son and 6 month old daughter in tow. She is a sweet, sweet child who allows me to hold her without fuss. Sarwa's son is another matter...in order to get a hug from him, I have to fake-cry which always makes me feel guilty, like I'm causing the need for future therapy (*sob* "...and my mom would have this strange lady come over who talked too loudly and would cry until I hugged her, but I didn't really want to hug her...)
I'm a pillow freak (inherited from my mom I think) and so our sectional couch (also inherited from mom) has about a gagillion pillows on it. Her son is having a grand old time burying himself underneath them and exploding out of them periodically while Sarwa & I chat and catch up.
Then she does something that makes me realize that wild and crazy Sarwa is still there, somewhere underneath the diaper changing pad and breast pump.
She grabs her son's ankles, yanking them out from under him so he falls flat on his back on the couch. She puts her hand over his mouth and begins tickling him mercilessly, while he squeals in obvious delight, his heels pounding away on the cushion.
At my shocked expression, she calmly tells me, "He shrieks so loudly I have to cover his mouth or the neighbors think I'm murdering him."
YES!
SHE won't judge me when I playfully torture my kids. She'll join right in!
And to the parents that don't understand that "torture" is an expression of love?
I feel sorry for you. You've never had the joy of embarrassing your kids or tickling them while they squeal in delight. Try it sometime...it's good for the soul. At least I always enjoyed some loving torture growing up.
*Names have been changed...slightly. But I'm not fooling anyone, am I?
Thursday, July 28, 2011
I Lure Them in with Promises of Ponies...
Monday night I was knee-deep in My Little Ponies.
My current Dungeon Master stopped by to hang out for a few hours, kids in tow. He has a pre-teen boy and a younger girl, both being raised in a geek-friendly household. The plan was for him to chill with us for a bit, eat dinner, and talk of inconsequential things. I knew I had plenty to entertain his daughter but was a little worried about the older boy (I shouldn't have; he got sucked into the video game vacuum with the Big B just fine).
The little girl moves at the speed of light, her words tumbling out just fast enough to stay un-muddled. I show her to our "office" aka the dumping grounds for anything and everything, and currently where my large bag of My Little Ponies is stored, along with a few pony buildings and some old cookie tins filled with brushes, clips, blankets, pillows, bottles, diapers and various other Pony accessories.
I can't keep up with the word-storm that is flying out of her mouth, but the gist is that she's excited about all the ponies, especially the kinds she hadn't seen before.
"BOY ponies? There are BOY ponies?"
"You can tell by the feet," I say, pointing out how the male ponies have big hairy feet like Budweiser Clydesdale horses in the commercials.
"Oooh! I like the skinny ponies! This one has sparkles in her hair!"
"These ones come with gems instead of regular eyes," I say while pointing to my favorite ponies. She is more entralled with the fuzzy ponies, however, and goes about systematically picking them all out of the pony-pile.
"There are cats, dogs, birds, a giraffe and a lion pony too," I offer helpfully.
*super-sonic squeal*
"I just LOVE animals! Animals of all kinds. How about we both play all the animal ponies, which one do you want to be, I want to be the lion, no wait, I want to be this purple cat...."
I let her extreme enthusiasm wash over me, remembering how excited I used to get over ponies.
"Which one do you want to be?" I grab Wizard, a pink flying pegasus pony with sparkly dark purple gems in place of painted eyes.
"She was my favorite when I was your age." She nods sagely, understanding how much favorites mean to girls. She shows me her own pony collection she brought with. The ponies are from more recently, but thankfully they are not the fun-house-mirror looking ponies I've seen in the toy aisles at Target. All of her ponies are sporting mohawks, courtesy of a "make over" session with her BFF.
"This one lost it's tail when I gave it a buzz cut," and she displays a tail-less pony proudly. I point out the few ponies that received haircuts from me years ago, but tell her that makeovers are good for one evening of fun, but whereas real hair grows back for more cutting fun, ponies are sadly limited in their ability to grow new hair.
Kids say the darndest things.
We are in the spare bedroom, where I grab the first season of My Little Pony on DVD.
"What's that?" and her eyes shine even more excitedly, if that's possible.
"This is the cartoon, do you want to watch? We can learn how the My Little Ponies came to be," I tell her.
"You mean we can be playing ponies at the same time we watch them on TV?" I nod.
"That's like Live Action Role Playing! I think it's called LARPing."
I should have known better, but I am tickled just the same. How many 9-year olds do you know that would know what LARPing is?
I put the pilot episode in the DVD player and let the familiar tunes wash over me. When it comes time for the sea pony musical number, we grab all the sea ponies I own and I find myself waving them in the air as if they were swimming, the little girl and I making our very own school of brightly-colored sea ponies.
I feel self-conscious at first, thinking how silly it is to be waving plastic seahorses in the air for no apparent purpose, but then I see how bright and shining her eyes are that we are playing together, and I can only smile and remember how much cooler it was when the grown-ups played too.
Unfortunately it is a week night, and her Dad comes to collect her to head home eventually. She puts up a bit of fuss but she's a good kid and starts tossing ponies back into the bag from which they came.
"Dad, can we come back sometime? Could we do a sleepover? I wanna do a sleepover."
I tell her I'd love to have a sleepover, winking at Dad and telling him sotto voce "Next time you need a sitter on the weekend or I have vacation during the week, I'd love to."
"How about this Wednesday?" She looks at me. "What are you doing Wednesday?"
Ah, the siren call of My Little Ponies. I knew the lure would work well!
I giggle and her dad says that we'll work it out for the future. He takes out his phone to take a picture of her pony-land creation just before we start to pick up, all the ponies painstakingly set upright in their dwellings with others hanging by their chubby little legs from the drawer handles of my craft-station.She makes a goofy face and demands a picture with our cat Gizmo, the scary monster for the ponies and by her proclamation the "coolest cat in the world" (I showed her how he plays fetch, and I'm sure his recent haircut was a big factor in this decision as well).
They leave and bed calls...
...but this morning the strains of "Shoo-be-doo, shoo-shoo-be-doo" are running through my head as I shower and I can't help but allow the big grin to surface, thinking how much fun it would be to have a sea pony with me, smiling at me with her horsey-smile and twinkling eyes.
My current Dungeon Master stopped by to hang out for a few hours, kids in tow. He has a pre-teen boy and a younger girl, both being raised in a geek-friendly household. The plan was for him to chill with us for a bit, eat dinner, and talk of inconsequential things. I knew I had plenty to entertain his daughter but was a little worried about the older boy (I shouldn't have; he got sucked into the video game vacuum with the Big B just fine).
The little girl moves at the speed of light, her words tumbling out just fast enough to stay un-muddled. I show her to our "office" aka the dumping grounds for anything and everything, and currently where my large bag of My Little Ponies is stored, along with a few pony buildings and some old cookie tins filled with brushes, clips, blankets, pillows, bottles, diapers and various other Pony accessories.
I can't keep up with the word-storm that is flying out of her mouth, but the gist is that she's excited about all the ponies, especially the kinds she hadn't seen before.
"BOY ponies? There are BOY ponies?"
"You can tell by the feet," I say, pointing out how the male ponies have big hairy feet like Budweiser Clydesdale horses in the commercials.
"Oooh! I like the skinny ponies! This one has sparkles in her hair!"
"These ones come with gems instead of regular eyes," I say while pointing to my favorite ponies. She is more entralled with the fuzzy ponies, however, and goes about systematically picking them all out of the pony-pile.
"There are cats, dogs, birds, a giraffe and a lion pony too," I offer helpfully.
*super-sonic squeal*
"I just LOVE animals! Animals of all kinds. How about we both play all the animal ponies, which one do you want to be, I want to be the lion, no wait, I want to be this purple cat...."
I let her extreme enthusiasm wash over me, remembering how excited I used to get over ponies.
"Which one do you want to be?" I grab Wizard, a pink flying pegasus pony with sparkly dark purple gems in place of painted eyes.
"She was my favorite when I was your age." She nods sagely, understanding how much favorites mean to girls. She shows me her own pony collection she brought with. The ponies are from more recently, but thankfully they are not the fun-house-mirror looking ponies I've seen in the toy aisles at Target. All of her ponies are sporting mohawks, courtesy of a "make over" session with her BFF.
"This one lost it's tail when I gave it a buzz cut," and she displays a tail-less pony proudly. I point out the few ponies that received haircuts from me years ago, but tell her that makeovers are good for one evening of fun, but whereas real hair grows back for more cutting fun, ponies are sadly limited in their ability to grow new hair.
Kids say the darndest things.
We are in the spare bedroom, where I grab the first season of My Little Pony on DVD.
"What's that?" and her eyes shine even more excitedly, if that's possible.
"This is the cartoon, do you want to watch? We can learn how the My Little Ponies came to be," I tell her.
"You mean we can be playing ponies at the same time we watch them on TV?" I nod.
"That's like Live Action Role Playing! I think it's called LARPing."
I should have known better, but I am tickled just the same. How many 9-year olds do you know that would know what LARPing is?
I put the pilot episode in the DVD player and let the familiar tunes wash over me. When it comes time for the sea pony musical number, we grab all the sea ponies I own and I find myself waving them in the air as if they were swimming, the little girl and I making our very own school of brightly-colored sea ponies.
I feel self-conscious at first, thinking how silly it is to be waving plastic seahorses in the air for no apparent purpose, but then I see how bright and shining her eyes are that we are playing together, and I can only smile and remember how much cooler it was when the grown-ups played too.
I apologize if you get this tune stuck in your head...it's insidiously sticky like that.
I think that's why it's invariably the favorite of any little who I've shown it to.
Unfortunately it is a week night, and her Dad comes to collect her to head home eventually. She puts up a bit of fuss but she's a good kid and starts tossing ponies back into the bag from which they came.
"Dad, can we come back sometime? Could we do a sleepover? I wanna do a sleepover."
I tell her I'd love to have a sleepover, winking at Dad and telling him sotto voce "Next time you need a sitter on the weekend or I have vacation during the week, I'd love to."
"How about this Wednesday?" She looks at me. "What are you doing Wednesday?"
Ah, the siren call of My Little Ponies. I knew the lure would work well!
I giggle and her dad says that we'll work it out for the future. He takes out his phone to take a picture of her pony-land creation just before we start to pick up, all the ponies painstakingly set upright in their dwellings with others hanging by their chubby little legs from the drawer handles of my craft-station.She makes a goofy face and demands a picture with our cat Gizmo, the scary monster for the ponies and by her proclamation the "coolest cat in the world" (I showed her how he plays fetch, and I'm sure his recent haircut was a big factor in this decision as well).
They leave and bed calls...
...but this morning the strains of "Shoo-be-doo, shoo-shoo-be-doo" are running through my head as I shower and I can't help but allow the big grin to surface, thinking how much fun it would be to have a sea pony with me, smiling at me with her horsey-smile and twinkling eyes.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
That Is SO a Word!
Monday's post got me on started on a trip down memory lane, forgive me another indulgent look back.
Ever have the trouble where your mind goes faster than your mouth can keep up? Happens to me all the time, resulting in fun smash words such as mawnlower.
I think the technical term is to call it a spoonerism. The Tory Steller at the annual Minnesota Rennaisannce Fair is one of my favorite shows to catch.
Growing up, we didn't so much do spoonerisms as we did outright substitution or manglation*, resulting in words we used that would mistify anyone outside the family.
"Back forward the tape! Back forward the tape!" my sister would scream excitedly at the TV if we needed to rewind and watch the scene again on the VCR.
"Obessies! I want obessies!" says my childhood self, referring, of course, to strawberries. Duh!
Re-raser (eraser), cubboard (cupboard), festibal (fesival) and the infamous memunk (chimpmonk) were some of my sister's.
I'm not sure how "honeyfrog" tranlsated to treefrog but that's what it was called in my youthful mind.
And to this day, I have to think before I can say nail polish correctly. My BFF speaks my childhood tongue very well and so she understands what I mean when I say, "Hand me the green paint nolish, will ya?"
*Manglation, to my knowledge, is NOT a word, except here where Scrabble laws don't apply.
Ever have the trouble where your mind goes faster than your mouth can keep up? Happens to me all the time, resulting in fun smash words such as mawnlower.
I think the technical term is to call it a spoonerism. The Tory Steller at the annual Minnesota Rennaisannce Fair is one of my favorite shows to catch.
Growing up, we didn't so much do spoonerisms as we did outright substitution or manglation*, resulting in words we used that would mistify anyone outside the family.
"Back forward the tape! Back forward the tape!" my sister would scream excitedly at the TV if we needed to rewind and watch the scene again on the VCR.
"Obessies! I want obessies!" says my childhood self, referring, of course, to strawberries. Duh!
Re-raser (eraser), cubboard (cupboard), festibal (fesival) and the infamous memunk (chimpmonk) were some of my sister's.
I'm not sure how "honeyfrog" tranlsated to treefrog but that's what it was called in my youthful mind.
And to this day, I have to think before I can say nail polish correctly. My BFF speaks my childhood tongue very well and so she understands what I mean when I say, "Hand me the green paint nolish, will ya?"
*Manglation, to my knowledge, is NOT a word, except here where Scrabble laws don't apply.
Monday, May 23, 2011
The Time Dad Almost Killed the TV
Growing up, I loved hearing stories about myself and my sister when we were younger. No matter how many times we may have heard a particular story, I was always happy to hear it again. Some stories I've heard so many times, I've made up a picture memory to go with it even though I can't recall it in actuality.
I'm sure vanity plays a big part in loving to hear about my childhood from an outside observer.
Almost as good were stories of our parents before we were born.
Perhaps it was the fascination of realizing your parents actually had lives before you came along. Maybe it was the sneak peek at how your parents saw themselves, as opposed to how you saw them.
Whatever the reason, I loved to hear of exploits from when my parents were dating. I liked when they'd point out places they'd lived before moving to where I grew up. I liked learning that my mom seduced my dad through his stomach (and I learned a kick-ass meatball recipe as part of my inheritance), that my dad couldn't take his eyes off my mom when he first saw her, how my mom thought my dad was sooooo cute with his curly dark hair, big 70's beard and crinkly green eyes (even if this did cause me to erupt with "eeewwws" as she told me the story).
Sometimes, however, a particular story wouldn't be remembered until there was cause...
It was Christmas time several years ago while I was still living at home and Lorenzo and I were wracking our brains to come up with ideas for presents for our parents.
The remote to our ancient but reliable TV had started going on the fritz, and we realized we not only had a great gift idea for the both of them, but it also included an opportunity for a little fun!
We picked up a universal remote at some electronics store and programmed it for our TV at home. We decided that while we would give this remote as a present, first we wanted to have a little fun with our "clueless" parents.
Our dastardly plan was to control the TV with the new remote while we all watched as a family and entertain ourselves while our parents freaked out that the TV was seemingly possessed. Little did we know how incredibly effective our trick would be...!
We all sat down and Lorenzo and I eyed each other from across the living room, barely able to contain our glee. I had the remote hidden under an afghan and was prepared to being using it (I chose an afghan not only because there was always an afghan in our house to curl up under, but also because of the strategically placed holes in the knitting that would allow the remote's infrared to escape properly).
We started watching our show and then I started hitting buttons.
I turned the volume wwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy UP.
I turned the volume wwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy down.
I changed the channel, several times.
I dared to turn the TV all the way off! Then back on again.
I continued pressing various buttons but meanwhile my sister and I couldn't stop giggling and the entire time, I just knew we were busted.
No way could they not realize that something was up with the two of us laughing like hyenas. But we overestimated our parents' powers of observation...or they were entirely distracted by the TV that had developed a sudden need for an exorcism.
I believe their comments went something like this:*
Dad: "What's wrong with the TV now?!?"
Mom: "I don't know! Look now it's changing channels!"
Dad: "What did you do?"
Mom throwing the remote at Dad: "Nothing! Here you take it!"
Dad flinching from the evil remote: "I don't want it! You take it back!"
Mom not catching the remote and refusing to touch it: "I don't want it either! It's possessed!"
Dad: "Somethings got to be wrong--now it's turned completely off!"
Mom: "I'm telling you it's possessed! Take it in the other room, quick! Maybe that will stop it!"
Dad: "That's not going to do it..."
My sister & I: Laughing uncontrollably
Dad: "That's it I've had it with this thing..."
...and with that he got up and angrily stalked towards the TV.
Immediately the story of Dad and the Bunny-Ears flashed through my head...
Dad and the Bunny-Ears (a remembered story from before I was on this earth)
Early on in their dating era my parents were going to sit down and watch some television at my mom's apartment. She didn't have cable and so relied upon a pair of bunny ears to catch the TV waves. My dad tried and tried to get the ears to get a channel to come in, but no matter how he positioned them or held various parts of his body in front of the set, the screen stubbornly refused to show anything but snow.
My dad has a short fuse...my mom says that he got frustrated and suddenly his arms were moving angrily and his hands had the wire ears in between them and then the bunny-ear set became a mangled ball of wire and telescoping antennas who were no longer capable of doing, well, anything.
...as the vividly pictured scene of bunny-ear disfigurement left my eyeballs, I realized that our TV was in serious danger.
My sister must have had the same thought because almost at the same time we both shouted "No!" and struggled up in our giggling to stop my dad from killing the TV.
We all shared a good laugh. I found out why our sibling laughter didn't give us away...apparently our parents just thought we were laughing at them!
We'd never do such a thing, right?
Right.
*This is a recollection and I do not contend that it is word-for-word accurate, but the gist of it is in the right area.
I'm sure vanity plays a big part in loving to hear about my childhood from an outside observer.
Almost as good were stories of our parents before we were born.
Perhaps it was the fascination of realizing your parents actually had lives before you came along. Maybe it was the sneak peek at how your parents saw themselves, as opposed to how you saw them.
Whatever the reason, I loved to hear of exploits from when my parents were dating. I liked when they'd point out places they'd lived before moving to where I grew up. I liked learning that my mom seduced my dad through his stomach (and I learned a kick-ass meatball recipe as part of my inheritance), that my dad couldn't take his eyes off my mom when he first saw her, how my mom thought my dad was sooooo cute with his curly dark hair, big 70's beard and crinkly green eyes (even if this did cause me to erupt with "eeewwws" as she told me the story).
Sometimes, however, a particular story wouldn't be remembered until there was cause...
It was Christmas time several years ago while I was still living at home and Lorenzo and I were wracking our brains to come up with ideas for presents for our parents.
The remote to our ancient but reliable TV had started going on the fritz, and we realized we not only had a great gift idea for the both of them, but it also included an opportunity for a little fun!
We picked up a universal remote at some electronics store and programmed it for our TV at home. We decided that while we would give this remote as a present, first we wanted to have a little fun with our "clueless" parents.
Our dastardly plan was to control the TV with the new remote while we all watched as a family and entertain ourselves while our parents freaked out that the TV was seemingly possessed. Little did we know how incredibly effective our trick would be...!
We all sat down and Lorenzo and I eyed each other from across the living room, barely able to contain our glee. I had the remote hidden under an afghan and was prepared to being using it (I chose an afghan not only because there was always an afghan in our house to curl up under, but also because of the strategically placed holes in the knitting that would allow the remote's infrared to escape properly).
We started watching our show and then I started hitting buttons.
I turned the volume wwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy UP.
I turned the volume wwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy down.
I changed the channel, several times.
I dared to turn the TV all the way off! Then back on again.
I continued pressing various buttons but meanwhile my sister and I couldn't stop giggling and the entire time, I just knew we were busted.
No way could they not realize that something was up with the two of us laughing like hyenas. But we overestimated our parents' powers of observation...or they were entirely distracted by the TV that had developed a sudden need for an exorcism.
I believe their comments went something like this:*
Dad: "What's wrong with the TV now?!?"
Mom: "I don't know! Look now it's changing channels!"
Dad: "What did you do?"
Mom throwing the remote at Dad: "Nothing! Here you take it!"
Dad flinching from the evil remote: "I don't want it! You take it back!"
Mom not catching the remote and refusing to touch it: "I don't want it either! It's possessed!"
Dad: "Somethings got to be wrong--now it's turned completely off!"
Mom: "I'm telling you it's possessed! Take it in the other room, quick! Maybe that will stop it!"
Dad: "That's not going to do it..."
My sister & I: Laughing uncontrollably
Dad: "That's it I've had it with this thing..."
...and with that he got up and angrily stalked towards the TV.
Immediately the story of Dad and the Bunny-Ears flashed through my head...
Dad and the Bunny-Ears (a remembered story from before I was on this earth)
Early on in their dating era my parents were going to sit down and watch some television at my mom's apartment. She didn't have cable and so relied upon a pair of bunny ears to catch the TV waves. My dad tried and tried to get the ears to get a channel to come in, but no matter how he positioned them or held various parts of his body in front of the set, the screen stubbornly refused to show anything but snow.
My dad has a short fuse...my mom says that he got frustrated and suddenly his arms were moving angrily and his hands had the wire ears in between them and then the bunny-ear set became a mangled ball of wire and telescoping antennas who were no longer capable of doing, well, anything.
...as the vividly pictured scene of bunny-ear disfigurement left my eyeballs, I realized that our TV was in serious danger.
My sister must have had the same thought because almost at the same time we both shouted "No!" and struggled up in our giggling to stop my dad from killing the TV.
We all shared a good laugh. I found out why our sibling laughter didn't give us away...apparently our parents just thought we were laughing at them!
We'd never do such a thing, right?
Right.
*This is a recollection and I do not contend that it is word-for-word accurate, but the gist of it is in the right area.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Dear Future Children,
I am excited for you and I to meet. I can't wait to see how you turn out, how the genetic melting pot between me and the Big B combines to create entirely new people.
I know that no matter who you are, you will be lovely human beings, who I will love fiercely and completely.
But if I can make one small request...one small prayer...one small hopeful, wistful wish...
...can you inherit some geek?
Just a portion, the size and direction being, of course, entirely up to you.
An example is included below.
Love you to infinity,
Your future Mother
I know that no matter who you are, you will be lovely human beings, who I will love fiercely and completely.
But if I can make one small request...one small prayer...one small hopeful, wistful wish...
...can you inherit some geek?
Just a portion, the size and direction being, of course, entirely up to you.
An example is included below.
Love you to infinity,
Your future Mother
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