thought of evil_mom
Posted on April 17th, 2009 by Big Ugly Man Doll
Saw this, one person jumped to mind. ;-)
Saw this, one person jumped to mind. ;-)
So it started with this: http://booksquare.com/open-letter-to-amazon-regarding-recent-policy-changes/
My first comment was that I had a dollar that says someone at Amazon loses a job over this once it gets corrected. Amazon has always been reasonably market savvy – this is a fail of epic proportion. "Should be interesting to watch this play out over the next week." (Prediction Fail.)
A week, Mr. Big Ugly Man Doll? This is the INTERNET. Try less than 24 hours. Right now, watching the latest, a hacker is claiming credit: http://www.pcworld.com/article/163024/hacker_claims_credit_for_amazons_gaythemed_book_glitch.html
This puts Amazon in a real bind from the PR perspective – do we admit fault and look like buttheads for being bigoted pigs, or do we blame the hacker and look like buttheads because we got burned? Firing some sacrificial middle manager makes it go away faster and doesn’t look as bad as "we can get hacked, you might not be able to trust that the site wasn’t compromised." Bad scene all around. No one wins.
On the other hand, SOBUMD’s first comment when I told her some hacker has claimed credit was "How much did they pay him?" Not really that farfetched….
The whole kerfuffle does raise questions similar to an arms race, though – who can respond faster?
Should be fun to watch this play out.
It’s often been noted that great artists and poets and scientists and that ‘creative’ lot seem to do their best work early in life. (When John Keats was my age, for example, he’d been dead for 14 years.)
This was hammered home to me this morning as I cooked bacon and eggs for SOBUMD, the Human Tape Recorder, and myself – the Reigning Queen of Pink has no truck with eggs, but claimed the bacon by divine right. Number One Son had eaten more than 2 hours earlier, having woken at 0Dark:30 to play international Wii MarioCart challenges under his internet pseudonym, Wiimaster™. (This proves that on the Internet, no one knows the Wiimaster is 8, or that he hasn’t had his meds, which might explain why people on the other side of the planet seem surprised that someone with the cajones to call themselves “Wiimaster™“ keeps driving down the track in the wrong direction, crashing into the other players. He doesn’t worry about what happens in the game; Number One Son happens to other people.)
But I digress. Once SOBUMD and the rest of the girls woke, I snapped off the couch and out of my coffee-induced reveries and got to cooking. The HTR was press-ganged into service whisking the eggs, and SOBUMD did her part as DJ – which is surely a term as antiquated as “Tape Recorder”, but again, “MP3 Playback Device Jockey / YouTube Selection Committee” just lacks that je ne se qua.
So there I was, wreaking hen’s fruit with sautéed fungi and goat cheese and frying thick smoked strips of yummy pig, when SOBUMD graced us with the dulcet tones of Simon and Garfunkel. It hit me, as I wailed along with Paul and Art that I, too, was a rock, and that I, too, was an island, that this song could never have been written by a parent.
“I am alone.” OK, epic fail right from the start. The concept of “alone” starts to mean, you know, except for the baby, I am alone. “Silent shroud of snow” – First off, the word ‘silent’ moves into off-line storage with the first kid; rather than being part of your daily vocabulary, it’s just a distant corollary related to the omnipresent “Can you please shut up for one second!”
So let’s review how this classic might have gone if Paul had tried to write it while home with his 3rd Grader:
A winters day,
and the goddamn schools are closed.
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the yard below
At my crazy kids out playing in the snow.
I need some sleep, I need some coffee.
These old board-books,
And this ancient stuffed giraffe,
I should throw this stuff out.
Next time I clean their rooms, where the hell’d I put the broom?
I swear to god I’ve lost my friggin’ mind!
I need some sleep, I need some coffee.
And I can’t sleep while they’re outside.
And my coffee’s gotten cold.
Ya, just not the same.
So there I was, minding my own business, when Number-One Son ordered me to listen to him read from the book that SOBUMD and I got him when we were in NYC this weekend. First thing to note is that when I walk downstairs and find him watching TV, he’s usually watching the Discovery Health channel – so the idea that we got him "The Visual Dictionary of the Human Body" from the Eyewitness Visual Dictionary series isn’t as farfetched as it might seem.
When SOBUMD got her hands on the long-awaited seventh book, "Harry Potter and the Shakespearian Ending," she immediately flipped to the end and read the last chapter first. Some people just do that – I used to think it was a nurture thing, but Number-One Son skips around a lot in books as well. Might be genetic.
Speaking of genetic, what do you think you would find at the end of The Visual Dictionary of the Human Body? Right. Give an eight-year-old boy a book – any book, shape, size, length, author, and topic notwithstanding – and in about 7 seconds he’s going to find you every instance of any mention of The Reproductive Organs.
(There are entire search engines based on the ability of eight-year-old boys to find the word "penis" in literature.)
"Daddy, you *have* to see this. Come here." I sit down, and he starts reading to me about the different parts of the tongue. So far, so good. He explains that the back section of his tongue, where we taste bitter foods, is where he tastes mint – which is why he doesn’t like it. "Well OK," says I, getting up to leave.
"No, wait, you have to see this too! [flip, flip, flip] The Reproductive System!"
Oh boy. And my eight-year-old son, cheerfully sitting next to me on the couch and pointing at the picture of the cutaway cock, starts reading:
"Sex organs located in the pelvis create new human lives. Each month a ripe egg is released from one of the female’s ovaries into a fallopian tube leading to the uterus (womb), a muscular pear-sized organ. A male produces minute tadpole-like sperm in two oval glands called testes. When the male is ready to release sperm into the female’s vagina, many millions pass into his urethra and leave his body through the fleshy penis. The sperm travel up the… Daddy, what’s so funny? Why are you laughing?"
Oh. My. God.
To my credit, I didn’t *really* lose it until he said "vag-EEN-a" with a hard "g". The Fa Lupé ion tube, the utter-us, and the OvAre Es, those were funny, yes, but I was able to hold it together and just correct his pronunciation. But the Vag-een-a, followed closely by the fleshy penis… I just doubled over. Never mind that he’s eight, has NO idea what he’s talking about, and is, I hope, at least 12 years away from finding out that when the male is ready to release sperm into the female’s vag-EEN-a, many dollars pass through his wallet before any sperm pass through his fleshy penis.
I’m just glad I didn’t have to listen to him try to pronounce clitoris, I’d’ve needed an inhaler.
Next time, I’m getting him the goddamn Star Wars book.
This needs some work, but….
One day as the Little Red Hen was scratching in a field, she found a grain of wheat.
"This wheat should be planted," she said. "Who will help me plant this grain of wheat?"
"Can’t you even plant a freaking grain of wheat by yourself?" said her asshole boyfriend.
"Is it difficult for you to see situations or individuals realistically?" said her therapist.
"You need to respect other peoples’ boundaries," said her mother.
"Then I’ll do it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
Soon the wheat grew to be tall and yellow.
"The wheat is ripe," said the Little Red Hen. "Who will help me cut the wheat?"
"Only if we’re going to smoke it," said her asshole boyfriend.
"You must learn to do these things for yourself," said her therapist.
"Put on a sweater if you’re going to be outside for long," said her mother.
"Then I’ll do it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
When the wheat was cut, the Little Red Hen said, "Who will help me thresh the wheat?"
"Why don’t you come over here and thresh my wheat," said her asshole boyfriend.
"Your parents were never married, were they?" said her therapist.
"Tell your therapist to shut his overpaid, overeducated mouth," said her mother.
"Then I’ll do it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
When the wheat was threshed, the Little Red Hen said, "Who will help me take this wheat to the mill?"
"Pick me up a six-pack while you’re out," said her asshole boyfriend.
"Did you MapQuest the directions?" said her mother. “Don’t forget the GPS.”
"Are you afraid of allowing other people to be who they are or of allowing events to happen naturally?" said her therapist.
"Then I’ll do it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
She took the wheat to the mill and had it ground into flour. Then she said, "Who will help me make this flour into bread?"
"Yeah, be out in just a minute hon," said her asshole boyfriend.
"Ohhh!" said her mother.
"You know you’re mother’s sleeping with your boyfriend while you’re out," said her therapist.
"Then I’ll do it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
She made and baked the bread. Then she said, "Who will help me eat this bread?"
"Oh! I will," said her asshole boyfriend.
"And I will," said her therapist.
"And I will," said her mother.
"You can all go screw yourselves!" said the Little Red Hen. "I’m outta here." And she left, taking her bread with her.