Disney Movies: Experts at Scarring Children for Life

| romcomdojo

Someone asked me if I was excited about the new Dumbo movie.  I had to restrain myself from responding with one or more of the following:

“I would rather replace every strip of bacon I eat with a similarly sized strip of duct tape that was used to pick hairs up from a crime scene that occurred on a bus station bathroom floor.”

“I would rather be locked in a room with Adam Levine (who I prefer to refer to as “Gonorrhea Jesse Pinkman”) and forced to listen to him wax philosophical about his ab routine for three days straight.”

“I would rather go back in time and replace every Love Boat cast member with a Kardashian/Jenner.  Kylie is the new Gopher!”

But, oh no!  You can’t be honest in those situations!  People get all, “Geez!  Sorry I asked!”

You know, people claim to want honesty above all else, but I can tell you from experience, the last thing most people want from you is honesty.  What people really want is for you to agree with them.

And you know what I don’t agree with?

Subjecting myself to Dumbo for a second time in my life.

Yeah, I saw it when I was five years old, and that was frankly more than enough to emotionally scar me for life.  The only way you could make me watch the re-make is if you were to put me in a straitjacket and hold my eyes open a la A Clockwork Orange.  Even then, I would just try to use The Force to choke myself unconscious.

Don’t act like I’m the only adult who still tries to use The Force.  I attempt it at least a few times a week when presented with “unpleasant situations” in public.  It hasn’t worked yet, but I swear last week a guy in front of me in the Walgreens line started to loosen his top collar button to get some air when he asked for a raincheck on a sale item during rush hour.  Had he turned around at that moment, he would have seen me doing this:

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He continued breathing air despite my righteous efforts of justice, happy as a raincheck-clam to torture all of the people he was holding up in line.  I could deal with it if it were some poor little old lady in a muu-muu and knee-highs, but this guy walked outside in his fancy golf outfit and suede driving moccasins and climbed into his S-Class Mercedes, raincheck in-hand for two canisters of almonds.

I pictured him sitting at a table later that night at Long John Silver’s, complaining that the seafood “just simply wasn’t up to snuff”.  THEN GO TO A REAL SEAFOOD RESTAURANT, JOHN “BUDDY” REGINALD RUTHERFORD-WINCHESTER III.  You clearly have the money and are just playing mind games with the rest of us!  You can pay full price for almonds, you rich prick!

In case you’re wondering, The Force also doesn’t work on making the tires of an S-Class Mercedes explode and rain down from the sky in hot tar ashes onto the tops of someone’s suede driving moccasins.  I place equal blame for that one on: (a) my rejection letter from Jedi school, and (b) quality German engineering.

Back to the Dumbo thing.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, then first of all, sorry, and second, you know I was an anxious worry-wort of a child.  A nervous wreck.  A real Sensitive Sally.  I didn’t really require supplemental things to worry about.

So imagine my surprise, sitting in front of a television screen, kindergarten-dangly-legs-happy to see “the cute elephant movie”, when Dumbo appears on the screen, gets mercilessly tormented by all the other circus animals, his mother defends him, and then she gets taken away from him and locked up in a cage, leaving Dumbo to fend for himself in a harsh, cruel world.

Hey you know what I shouldn’t have had to worry about when I was a kid?  My mother being taken away from me and locked up, leaving me alone to traverse a cruel world.  I don’t care if it works out in the end – little kids shouldn’t have to worry about those things.  Yes, sometimes it happens, mothers get locked up, kids get taken away, but worrying about it in advance will do absolutely nothing beneficial for you as a kid.

Same with Bambi.  Kids shouldn’t have to worry about their mothers getting shot by hunters.  How about we just let them cross that bridge when it happens and address it at that time, because odds are pretty damn good that it’s not going to happen in the first place?  In the meantime you’re just terrifying children for no good reason.

If you want to teach kids about things like life and death, forego the Disney films and get them a hamster, and then never, ever, ever, ever, ever let them actually hold the hamster, because having to watch a child hold a hamster is the most nerve-wracking thing I’ve ever experienced.

You know what?  No hamsters.  Get them a fish with a locking lid on the tank, put barbed wire around the outside of the tank, and keep the tank in a locked room that the kid can never get into.

Children around small pets is just too much for me.  I can’t take it.

“Look how cute Bryson/Greyson/Flotsam is holding the baby chick!”

GET THAT CHICK AWAY FROM THAT KID RIGHT THIS SECOND. I KNOW HE’S SQUEEZING IT.

So, no.  I’m not seeing the new Dumbo movie.

You, You, You, Otter Know!!

| romcomdojo

Look, maaaybe I’m guilty of blocking children’s view of the otters at the marine conservation center.  What is that?  A CRIME?

(Please note in advance that this post is what is often referred to as “a joke”.  Your children are adorable, some of my favorite people are children, blah, blah, blah, etc.  Do not send a Mom Mob after me.  I’ve got enough problems trying to get the Beauty Battalion off my jock for insulting their lie-brows and suggesting that “contouring” is over.  They already wrote “You’re dead, bitch” in bronzer across my driveway and came back later with highlighting powder to really make it pop.)

I get way more enjoyment out of the otters than your kid ever will, and I can say this because your kid can’t be bothered to put down his Nintendo Switch long enough to notice the otters to begin with.  Ignoring otters?!  THAT should be a crime.

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Yeah, we’re all reeeally excited that you rescued the Fortnite princess from the Tetris castle or whatever, Bryson/Greyson/Flotsam.

My attention to otters can best be described as utter otter devotion, and should be rewarded as such by naming me “Honorary Otterkeeper” for the day, where I will get to wear a glittery badge and feed shrimp to the otters from a souvenir bucket that I get to take home with me that says, “That’s an-OTTER story!” on the side with a picture of two otters reading books and wearing glasses.

I would get a personal invitation to the birthing of all baby otters and unlike SOME PEOPLE who have “Little League practice”, I would actually show up every time.

I would give the baby otters interesting names, too, like “Ottermatic For The People”, “And Then There’s Maude-er”, and “Genesis But Before Peter Gabriel Left The Band”.  I wouldn’t give them some totally lame name a kid would give them, like a cat with white paws named “Socks” or the tiger-striped cat named “Tiger”. You’re really breaking the creativity bank there!  What are you, 8?

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Oh, so you actually are 8?  NO EXCUSE.  NEXT!

Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn at the otter tank, Bryson/Greyson/Flotsam – not that you even care!  Your parents are the only ones who are having a conniption over me blocking the tank, anyway.  You were probably here last week and you’ll be back again the next week because for some reason children get to do all the vacation things ALL THE TIME now.

Know where we went when I was a kid?  School.  If school was out?  Home.  You only got taken to an otter tank if your parents had some kind of hideous news to spring on you, like you were moving to Goober, Idaho (Shout out to my fellow Overboard fans!),  or had an incurable form of Leukemia.

Curable Leukemia would only warrant a trip to the McDonald’s drive-thru at best, and there would be no special orders.  You’re getting crushed peanuts on that hot fudge sundae even though you don’t want them, because THAT’S the way it comes.  Hell, you’re getting them even if you’re allergic to peanuts!  “Toughen up, Sally!” is what they’d say as you turned purple and lost consciousness.

If a kid had asked to go swimming with dolphins, any of our parents would have just pointed to the open ocean and said, “Go for it, asshole.”

If you ever, ever made the mistake of saying, “I’m bored!” it was immediately met with, “Then go clean your room.”  (This was a brilliant parental move, by the way.  We figured out pretty quickly to stop complaining that we were bored.)

I mean, for the love of Mike, people.  Otters don’t cut it with these kids?  If your kid is non-plussed by the glorious sight of frolicking otters, I have serious concerns for how they’re gonna feel someday down the road about doing their taxes.

Come to think of it, if I took a kid to an otter tank and they rolled their eyes like, “Whatevs!” I would make them actually do my taxes that year as punishment.  You think third grade is hard?  Wait until you see U.S. tax code.  And I better be getting a fat refund, kid, or your ass is grass.  Orphanage City, sonny boy!

Now, I have heard it’s good to provide children with “motivation”, so I would at least be kind enough to leave my to-do list next to the tax papers:

  1. Take ungrateful kid to that orphanage in the sewer with the scary clown in it
  2. Pick up dry cleaning
  3. Order cake for celebration now that ungrateful kid is living in that orphanage in the sewer with the scary clown
  4. Turn ungrateful kid’s room into otter habitat

(The foregoing are just several of the many reasons I am not permitted to have children.)

All right, hate-mailers, put down your weapons.  I’m sure your kid who can’t be bothered to fawn over otters is going to turn out just fine.  Everyone knows that bored, demanding children only become more pleasant to be around when they become teenagers.  Enjoy your time in Hell, is what I’m saying.

Fine.  So like all old, childless people, I think a lot of “kids today” are spoiled.  That’s a new one!

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room.” – THIS IS AN ACTUAL SOCRATES QUOTE FROM LIKE 450 B.C. SO GO BLAME HIM FOR STARTING THIS

If you want to get uppity about it, just know that for my punishment I will have to train an otter family to change my diapers for me when I’m old, I’ll die with no heirs and will be tossed into a shared hobo burial pit, and the only proof that I even existed will be a souvenir bucket with “That’s an-OTTER story!” on the side with two Winger cassettes inside, so relax.  I’ll get mine.

I Would Rather Wear Cheese Than Go To Your Scentsy Party

| romcomdojo

I’m not sure there’s a more dreaded situation than someone calling you up and saying, “Hey!  What are you doing this weekend?”

Uggggh.  Even if I’m doing absolutely nothing, with the way you’ve worded the question, you’ve now forced me to answer, “I’m not sure?  I think there was a thing we were doing?  I’ll have to double check and let you know.  Why, what’s up?”

Know why I have to answer that way?  Because I have no way of knowing what kind of nightmare you’re going to try to pull me into with your vague-ass question.  What will it be?!

Let’s roll the dice, shall we?  I shall also provide you with a visual reminder along the way of who I am, just in case you forgot.

You want me to help you move and you live in a five floor walk-up, and when I show up you haven’t even STARTED packing yet?  I’m rolling the dice aaaand…

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You want me to work at your old high school’s band boosters gift wrapping even though I didn’t go to your school and was never in marching band to begin with?  Look, bucko.  I vowed to never return to my own high school after I emotionally limped away from that hellhole twenty-five years ago to nurse my wounds after four years of goddamned torture.  You can imagine my feelings about hanging around yours.

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You want me to come to your Scentsy party, which by the way I am never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever (*please see footnote at the bottom for further reference) coming to?  I would rather put on a scuba suit made of feta cheese and slide down a gigantic cheese grater into the arms of a nude, olive oil-coated Rush Limbaugh marinating in an ocean of balsamic vinegar.

(Don’t ask me, “What is Scentsy?”  Google it and then run for your life.  And for the love of god, my husband and mother-in-law read this blog, let there be no further talk of nude Rush Limbaugh.  In the entire universe.)

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You want me to come over for a “Wedding Video Watch-Party” where you will make everyone spend their Saturday night watching your two-hour long wedding video, and by the way I was actually present at said wedding?  I remember it well.  It just happened a month ago.

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Uh oh.  Someone said the word “wedding” on the interwebz, which is the opposite of pulling the emergency brake.  Here we go.  Make yourself comfortable!

Deep breath:

Besides your wedding, I was also present for the engagement announcement party, the ‘formal’ engagement party, the wedding dress shopping, the friends bridal shower, the family bridal shower, the bridesmaid dress fittings, the dual bachelor and bachelorette parties, the rehearsal dinner, the breakfast with ‘the girls’ before the wedding, the wedding reception, the after-party, the brunch the next morning, the goodbye dinner with your relatives FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ENOUGH WITH YOUR WEDDING THAT I HAVE ALREADY DEVOTED MONTHS AND MONTHS OF MY LIFE TO, NOT TO MENTION LIKE FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS UGGGGGGGH THIS IS WHY I ELOPED.

I can hardly wait until you have a baby so that I’ll have to quit my job in order to attend the “Destination Gender Reveal Party” you have scheduled at 10am on a Tuesday in Indonesia, where you will request that everyone show up in authentic costumes from Alice in Wonderland so we can make handcrafted Lewis Carroll books for your spawn out of sustainably-sourced bamboo paper; the very same party where you will insult everybody by loudly and snottily correcting anyone who doesn’t refer to the book by its proper title of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”.  LIKE IT MATTERS, SHARON.

What?  Of course I can bring the ice sculpture of the Cheshire Cat!  What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?!

I’ll make you a deal.  If you don’t get mad when I decide to liven things up when you reveal the gender by collapsing into a heap of sobbing tears on the floor, raising both arms to the sky and crying out, “Oh god, why?!!!  WHY?????!!!!!!” then I’ll think about it.

Some of you people get married and have babies and lose ALL TOUCH WITH REALITY.  You can at least let me have some fun with it.

Okay.  I’m over it.  Wedding rant done.  Back to it!

You would like to get together for a nice evening of cocktails and conversation at that fantastic new place we’ve been wanting to try out? I’m rolling the dice…

We’ve got a 7!   7 is a winner!!

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The point is, could be something awesome, could be something I would sell my soul to get out of, but with the way you asked, there’s no way to know until AFTER I’ve already told you my availability, which then means I’ll have no way to get out of it.  Give people an ‘out’ for Maude’s sake!

If you say, “Hey!  What are you doing this weekend?” and I answer, “Oh, nothing!” now I’m on the damn hook.

Now I look like a jerk if I turn you down for the hideous thing you want me to do, and that’s not fair, because there are way, way more interesting reasons that I’m a jerk, and now you’ve just made me look like an ordinary jerk, you bubblegummed bastard!

Interesting jerk behavior includes putting Worcestershire on everything before I even taste it, hating a sports team forever because I didn’t like a star player’s face who’s not even on the team anymore, hiding behind store displays when I hear someone yell my name out in public, and not feeling even remotely bad about blocking children’s views of the otters at the marine center.

< Eyeroll > I like the otters, too, Bryson/Greyson/Flotsam.  You’re not the only one who wants to see them frolicking.  Stop being so selfish, 8-year old!

 

*ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever