Big Ugly Man Doll

Recently I commented that Happiness is reading 200-yr-old poetry to your 7-yr-old daughter. The Reigning Queen of Pink and I are reading Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake, which is one of my all time favorites, published in 1810. I read a bit of it to the Human Tape Recorder a few years ago, and she told me it was OK but she wished it had pictures. I wound up getting a 1910 version with gorgeous full color plates, which the RQoP is enthralled with.

Tonight I find I know what sadness is, although sadness may not really be enough of a word for it. The world has become more coarse since James Fitz-James first chased a stag in the forests of the Trossachs. Number One Son was called to the principal’s office today for using a school computer to draw a swastika.

Now in all of 3rd Grade, he’s been exposed to Nazis and their symbol in books and literature, specifically in the Indiana Jones movies and in Dr. Who, and likely in others I don’t have on the top of my head. The explanation he gave was that he wanted to see if he could construct the image correctly, free-hand with the mouse, on the computer. Remember that crazy means not having to sweat the details, like offending pretty much everyone in the civilized world. Crazy also means being on a first-name basis with the principal, who luckily understands him but worries that trying this again at the new school in 4th grade next year will get him in real trouble. She explained to him that the swastika is a very offensive symbol of hate, and called us to reinforce the message.

SOBUMD reiterated that the swastika is a very offensive symbol of hate when he got home. After dinner, having been briefed on the events of the day, I called him into my office. The first thing out of his mouth when I closed the door was, “Daddy, I know about the swastika is an offensive symbol already, Mommy told me!”

But learning the lesson from rote won’t really help him understand why he needs to never do this again. I started with one of my Rudyard Kipling books (Kim, in fact) and showed him the swastika there. Kipling used it as his personal symbol from the late 1890s through about 1933. You know, and I know, why Kipling would have stopped using what had been a symbol popular in Hinduism and a dozen world religions, in the mid-1930s. But he doesn’t. He knows that Hitler and the Nazis were bad, just as he knows Voldemort and the Death Eaters were bad. What he lacks is context – he knows the Nazis are always portrayed as villains, but he doesn’t know why.

As with his sisters and the illustrated edition, the lesson hits harder with pictures. So to make very, very clear something that he’s not going to learn in 3rd and 4th grade, I sat him on my lap and rolled through a well-done, graphic, piece on YouTube about the Holocaust, including pictures from the liberation of several concentration camps. And pictures of the children in them. The video clip mentioned all the groups that were targeted for death, including “anyone with mental defects.” I explained to him that this would have, at the time, included himself – he hadn’t put that together either.

It took about 7 minutes.

He won’t do that again.

But still, if Happiness is reading 200-yr-old poetry to your 7-yr-old, surely Sadness is having to show 70-yr-old hatred to your 9-yr-old.

Tags: Children // 7 Comments »

Everyone should have to attend a Build-a-Bear party at least once, if only to remind those without children why they don’t want them. Hard core cases might consider working there.

The Reigning Queen of Pink, Grand Duchess of Fluff, and High Protector of Barbies was invited to a birthday party that involved bears. Having never been to a Build-a-Bear workshop, it was decided that my number was up, and off we went.

The party started like all such parties, where I walk in with the bouncingly cute RQoP and am completely invisible to members of the other gender. Since I was the only Big Ugly Man Doll in the place, I was easy to ignore. This was rectified by the mother of the celebrant, who knows me. Once she (as the party organizer) acknowledged my existence, I suddenly became visible enough for other women to talk to me. She also introduced me to a sister in law, who smiled without making eye contact and promptly left the building – that’s more like it. Once the grandmother of the celebrant gave me a big hug as well, I was nearly accepted as one of the girls.

You know, until I spoke. You make one little comment about naming your bear “Harry” and then bringing it home and shaving it bald, and everyone backs away. The mother of the celebrant asked me point blank, “SOBUMD sends you to these as fodder for the blog, doesn’t she?”

Busted.

If you haven’t had the joy of attending a party where bears are built, let me tell you a little about it. First, not THAT kind of bear, though I still think mine would make for a cooler, albeit shorter, party. The first thing we do is gather up all your little darlings and report to your Party Leader. Now, I thought the Party Leader was Senator Robert Byrd or Kim Jong il or something, but in this case it’s some slob whose will to live has been so sapped by working here they run the parties because they can’t fight anymore, or they’re so obscenely old they don’t remember the schedule anyway, also like Senator Robert Byrd, come to think of it.

(“You’re very young for this decision, you know – what makes you consider a vasectomy at only 23 years old?” “Doctor, I work at Build-a-Bear in the mall.” “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. We’ll get you scheduled right away.” )

We follow our Dear Leader to a corner where she hands all the kids an empty bear skin, which at this point looks for all the world like a large furry condom. Now for my money, we should end this here with a nice new bearskin rug for the dollhouse, but it was not to be.

Next stop, organ harvesting! Dear Leader troops all the little darlings to the back of the store and everyone is issued a shiny cloth heart. The birthday celebrant then walks up and down the line, pausing for each attendee to drop their heart into the birthday girl’s fur sack, which looks like a fealty ritual straight out of old school Kabbalah: “I give you my heart, to place in your bear.” “I hold your heart in my bear, and so you are mine.”

At the end of this, you’re looking at a bear with 18 or more hearts – woe betide the hunter who runs afoul of this bruin with his rifle. (They also sell a push-button heart you can sew into your bear that makes the sound of a heart. For about 15 seconds. The downside is that when it *stops*, another bear in a Doctor outfit runs up with paddles, yells “clear!” and singes the heck out of little Cuddles. It’s a great gift for nursing students, but your average 7-yr-old might get a little freaked at having their bear go into cardiac arrest every night.)

Dear Leader then gives each kid a new heart for their own bear and takes the kids to the stuffing station. This is a large box with fluff flying and floating in it, which we can see through the large glass window.. There are buttons on the front marked Love, Joy, Friendship, and Happiness. One of the kids asked what the buttons did, and the answer was, of course, “that’s so you can add happiness and love to your bear!”

Wait, no, the answer was “those make the lights in the box change color.” Right. Your soul and your last check will be mailed to the address we have on file. Get out.

Now, I watched this part pretty closely, and it looks like a pretty raw deal for the bear. Here you are, all fondled and sticky with a brand new heart, and suddenly Wham! You’re the cover story for Proctology Today, as someone bends you over and stuffs the tailpipe from a ’72 Charger up your ass while the Grandmother of the Birthday Celebrant takes your picture.

While you’re enjoying your first proctology exam, your new owner steps on a foot pedal that operates what can only be described as the Ultimate Cotton Enema. (And you know she loves you, because it hurts so good!) By the time it’s over you’ve gone from a size two to a size 12 in under a minute, and your new heart’s in your throat – probably literally. A quick stitch up the ass and you’re on your own, and the soulless proctologist is yelling Next!

Next, once the kids have bears and the bears have had the Ultimate Cotton Enema, is that it’s time to go. Oops, nope – not time to go yet, because we’re scheduled for another 45 minutes and half the parents aren’t here. Buying yourself some time in a Build-a-Bear shop means exactly that – buying. On with the Outfits! While the children tried cute shirts on their bears, I looked through the immense outfit selection. I decided that I need to start my own Build-a-Bear Band: They have a Sailor outfit, a Construction Worker outfit, a Biker outfit, a Cowboy outfit, an Indian outfit, and a Police Officer outfit. Yep – I’m taking them home, shaving a few of them bald, oiling them up and dressing them as the Village People. (“I wanna be a macho, macho bear…”)

The RQoP eventually found a nice shirt that said something like “Why yes, I *do* do that in the woods!”

As we were leaving, I slipped the Mother of the Celebrant a spare cloth heart, just so she can whip it out should her kids ever call her heartless. I also had a chance to interview one of the bears, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he fears reprisals.

BUMD: “So, tell me about the Ultimate Cotton Enema machine.”
Bear: “At first, it’s life, you know, it’s pain, but it’s a good kind of pain. After about 3 seconds, though, you just lay there and wait for it to be over. I’m not going to lie to you, that shit hurts.”
BUMD: “Is that the worst part of this job, do you think?”
Bear: “The worst, no, I’d have to say the name game is the worst. For example, my friend is called Raglan the Resplendent. One of these days, though, some poxy kid will walk in and Bang! His name is Brownie, or Coco, or Cuddles. We all pray for a decent name, but it’s always Lollipop, Brownie, Princess, or Oodles, or Spiderman if we go home with a boy.”
BUMD: “Any other dangers?”
Bear: “Bartholomew Bruinson got sucked into the Ultimate Cotton Enema machine once. It tore him up back there, if you know what I mean.”
BUMD: “Rectum?”
Bear: “Rectum? Damn near killed ‘im! Heh, god I love that joke.”

With that I left, for obvious reasons, following the trail of kids and the Reigning Queen of Pink, who had a wonderful time, of course. Those who rule by divine right tend to have a good time everywhere they go.

Tags: Children // Add Comment »

Now pretty much every American male between 15 and 25 years during the early 80s can tell you that Dukes of Hazzard was the best show on television at the time. There were many theories put forth about the show’s popularity, from the classic story themes to the archetypes in characters. And also Daisy Duke.

Catherine Bach, as Daisy Duke, was the perfect foil to Tom Wopat and John Schneider’s Bo and Luke, and the three of them were why boys, and girls, respectively (or not respectively, depending on one’s predilections and dispositions), watched the show in droves. An episode without Daisy was a day without sunshine, or at least a day without great legs and et cetera.

And I’d still kinda like to drive a 1969 Dodge Charger.

But I was nearly grounded for watching the show. You see, the Human Tape Recorder comes by her sobriquet naturally, and regrettably paternally.

And it came to pass one day that a bargain was struck – I was allowed to watch “that dreadful show” (as it was called in my house, denigrating the fine name of the General Lee and casting aspersions on my Daisy) on the condition that I not come upstairs and repeat the episode verbatim. In fact, I was to refrain from discussion of the show unless directly pertinent to the topic at hand.

Did I really watch an hour of television and then “synopsize” it to my parents for an hour, line for line? Yes I did. Can two out of three of my own children cast of characters do that now? Yes, yes they can. Have I struck the same bargain with them? Oh, hell yes.

(The difference is that I’m sparing myself from the likes of Hannah Montana and iCarly. My parents were missing out on quality programming.)

Last night, my mother called me. She called to ask that I explain to my father that he is not allowed to watch “24” any more, unless he agrees not to come upstairs and tell my mother everything Jack Bauer said along with a blow-by-blow recitation of each person killed and why Jack felt badly about it.

Now, 24 is a step above iCarly – the singing’s better – but I have to side with her on this one. (Besides, Jack probably would sleep with Daisy Duke, then have her killed for conspiring with Boss Hogg, then feel badly about it.)

To Dad’s credit, he assumed that my mother was calling HIS mother, the Queen Mother of Pink. When he realized she was calling me, he tickled her until she hung up laughing. My parents may be as crazy as my kids!

Tags: Children // Add Comment »

So there I was, looking up at the Geek of 6th Grade, who was dangling from his harness 40 feet in the air. Not the geek of MY 6th grade, mind you – that was Mitch Prothro, and Mitch if you’re reading this… Hi!

I was volunteering last Saturday at a 3-day camp for Kids Who Think They’re Smarter Than The Rest Of Us And Whose Test Scores Indicate They May Be Unfortunately Correct. The Human Tape Recorder, who attends the school for these kids, was among the campers but not, to my chagrin, among those dangling 40 feet in the air. The activity was called High Ropes, but should really be called “Don’t Feel So Damn Smart NOW, Do Ya?”

I was ground crew help, which means I swing the ropes on the zip lines over to the next climber, get the kids from that activity to lunch when they’re done, and keep an eye on the sky for anyone doing something improbably ignorant, which is of course highly likely. The first one up and across my section of rope was, well, we’ll call him Charlie. Now, before the professionals suit these kids up, they provide some detailed instructions. One of them was simple: How many Carabineers should you have attached to you when you’re on the Ropes? Answer: “Two, or One, but never None!”

So Charlie gets from one 40-foot-high platform to the next without great difficulty, and grabs for the tree. Standing alone on that high ledge, hands on the tree, he promptly grabs the Carabineer attached to the tree. He then proceeds to unscrew the Carabineer attaching him to the zip line and take it off. Holding on to nothing but the tree and what I have to assume is a firm belief in an Almighty Buddy System, he finally notices me shouting myself hoarse to hook the next Carabineer to his harness. He clipped it on just as a good gust of wind moved the tree he was in. I don’t think he was ever in any real danger of falling, but it certainly got his attention.

He next assayed a less-simple rope crossing whereby one walks on a wire holding a rope, which descends past said wire and is joined by a corresponding rope coming up – you have to switch ropes mid-way.

Let me take a moment to note that this is not easy. This does not look easy even to me. While it might be easier for someone smaller than a Big Ugly Man Doll, 40 feet in the air is not a natural position for most of us, even 10-, 11-, and 12-yr-olds, even smart ones, and my hat’s off to them for trying any of this stuff at all. Mind you, the *really* smart ones picked activities like Fireside Cooking, which kept them warm and fed. So maybe I had the left-side of the bell curve in the first place.

Charlie, bless his heart, got a little more than halfway when his nerve got tangled up in the ropes and he backed himself back up to the tree he’d been on, and asked to be lowered down. I high-fived him once he got to the ground, just for not getting killed – seemed a worthy goal.

The next Charlie up – and they’re all named Charlie, really, at that age, was without doubt the Geek of 6th Grade (Go6G). He was dressed in 1970’s MIT black frame glasses, boisterous bravado, and corduroy pants. It was the bravado that made the outfit complete. He set out across a 3-rope challenge, which was also complicated, right above me. He got about halfway across before he realized that the rope he was holding descended below his feet, and switched ropes. He grabbed first one rope, then another, and was trying to figure out how to grab a third. Knowing that they’re all here because they’re nominally smarter than most, I couldn’t resist cheerleading a bit.

“Come on, it’s an IQ test! You can do it…” That’s when he let go of the other rope to grab the other other rope, with his other other hand. And the Go6G swung like a pendulum from his tethered harness, screaming like a girl.

“Aaaaaaaaaand, you’ve failed.”

To his great credit, he quit screaming quickly and realized that he could now just hand-over-hand to the other side, regardless of which rope was which. Once on the next platform, he too started to unhook the tether and needed a gentle reminder about how many Carabineers should you have attached to you when you’re on the High Ropes? Answer: “Two, or One, but never None!” He tethered himself to the tree and unhooked the old line.

I passed him the line for the next course – a straight up zip line jump – and he tethered himself to that. Flushed from his brush with gravity and now convinced of his awesomeness, he turned his attention to the jump ahead – just hold the rope and leap, and the zip line runs you 20 feet to the next tree. “Guys, hey guys! Watch this!” yelled the Go6G.

Do you know the most common last words of guys under 35? “Hey ya’ll, watch this!”

So the Go6G gets a good two steps back, plants his feet, and jumps out into space, holding the rope with the zip line for dear life. He put a lot into that jump. Now here’s a question – how many Carabineers should you have attached to you when you’re jumping on a zip line? Answer: Not Two.

So when he reached the end of the 7-foot rope still tethering him to the tree, he stopped like he’d hit a brick wall – it looked like an illegal Quidditch move. He once again screamed like a girl, and had to unhook the offending Carabineer mid-flight. Once again to his credit, he managed to get to the other side and down safely. As I high-fived him, I mentioned that he could just claim altitude sickness. I don’t think he even heard me, and his answer was all Go6G: “That was AWESOME!”

Uncowed and unbowed. You go, Charlie.

Tags: Children // Add Comment »

Let me say first that our kids know there are words they’re not supposed to use: The “S” word. The “F” word. The “D” word. Ann Coulter. They know they’re going to get in trouble if we hear these words from their lips. It’s not like we’re telling them it’s OK to go around yelling curse words all the time. It’s not like they hear that shit from me, either – well, OK, but SOBUMD is from Jersey and she will damn well let you know it.

So the other day, Number One Son had a hard time undressing for bed – his shirt was really tight around the neck, and he needed some help pulling it over his head. He then asked me politely if he could please use a swear word. It was just the two of us, so I said to go ahead if he felt he really needed to.

“Daddy, some shirts are really a bitch.”

Now, in my house there is no God but Grammar, and Webster is his prophet. The dictionary is probably closer to a holy book in our house than the actual bible. (For those readers expressing surprise, yes, we own a bible or two – but the dictionaries get read more often.) The words “I don’t care for any more” will get you excused from the table; “I don’t care for no more” will get you sent to your room.

So it was in this spirit that I explained to Number One Son that Messrs. Strunk and White would probably have him amend his words. First, not to swear at all, but second… The term “bitch” has a female connotation, and you’re discussing a man’s shirt. I’d rather he say, “that shirt is a real bastard” – since it’s a man’s shirt. Of a ladies’ blouse, one might say that it was a bitch, but in general he should try to maintain a consistent gender while cursing. And finally, please, don’t curse at all – after all, I don’t want to hear that shit from him.

Needless to say this devolved into paroxysms of laughter on his part, since he doesn’t usually hear me use that many curse words in a row unless I’m working on plumbing, reading the news, or writing code. I think he went to sleep channeling George Carlin. When I brought the whole conversation to SOBUMD, she asked what one would do with unisex clothing, such as a hoodie. I maintain the proper cursing etiquette would be to go with the gender of the wearer, leaning toward the masculine when in doubt.

I was reminded of the need in college to instruct my roommate – brilliant, but new to swearing – in similar fashion. “The gerund comes before the noun. You’re not going to sit in effing that chair, you’re going to sit in that effing chair.” After all, if you’re going to swear in the first place, please do so with the proper effing inflection, good goddamm grammar, and wit.

Tags: Children // 3 Comments »