Kid Stuff


Wherein Our Heroine Tells Some Kid Stories That Make Her Laugh.
I was waiting in line at BWI earlier this year, doing the cattle-corral shuffle back and forth between the Tensabarriers, just sort of spacing out. In front of me was one of those terribly together-looking little kids - about five, with glasses and good posture. This is a five-year-old who could probably be trusted to do your taxes. Suddenly, he turns to his mom and in a very serious, disapproving voice says, “I’ve never been in such a long line in my whole life.”

I cracked up. How much of a sample size is that, anyway?

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Does anyone else remember a freakish bit of stop-action animation on Sesame Street? It showed an bowl of fruit, then the orange pops out of the bowl, rolling around on the counter, picking up facial features made from other household objects along the way. Finally, when it has its face assembled, it starts to belt out an aria from "Carmen."

This orange terrified me like nothing I have seen before or since. I called it the Monna-Monna Orange and I fled the room for years whenever it came on the television.

What was Jim Henson thinking/smoking when he made that?

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Many Christmases ago, when my friend Alicia's kid Sierra was about four, I decided to make a Christmastime call to Alicia. When she got on the phone, she sounded just like I imagine a refugee from the Siege of Stalingrad might. Exhausted, yet exasperated. "Is Sierra a little wound up?" I asked.

"You have no idea. You want to talk to her?"

Sierra comes on the phone, fizzing with excitement, "Hi Jill! Mommy says she's about to crack!" In point of fact, Alicia uses this phrase quite a bit, but it was funny to hear it come out of a little kid.

"Hey Si - you excited to see Santa?"

"Yah - Santa's George Clinton!"

Pause to soak in the surreality of it all. "Er... Santa's a black man with multicolored dreadlocks who plays bass in a funk band?"

"Yah! Santa plays funk music!"

God bless that kid. She lives on a planet I would like to vacation on.

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Some time in my grade school years, I came home from school and found my mother ironing and watching Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. I objected strenuously to her choice of programming (We live in the middle of the woods! Someone will obviously see you doing something that uncool, Ma! What was I worried about anyway, someone would take away all of my bookish, straight-A-getting, frizzy-haired, insanely small-town street cred and cool points?)

Her reply? "Lay off. He's the only one who likes me just the way I am."
Posted: Thursday - September 02, 2004 at 07:57 AM         | |

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