You’re driving me to drink, Charlie Brown

“And so, Charlie Brown, that’s why life is hopeless and there’s nothing to be happy about, ever. Happy Holidays!”

Get your comfy “line standing shoes” polished up and dust off that one man pup-tent!

Yes; pack a lunch and a soup can to pee in, because “Charlie Brown” the movie is coming to the big screen and there is gonna be a line-up for tickets the likes of which you won’t believe! This thing is gonna put “The Hunger Games” pre-sale to shame and I…I can’t do this.

I discovered this exciting cinematic revelation on Google a few weeks ago. I was feeling pretty good – too good, in fact – and realized I needed to be taken down a peg or two on the happiness ladder. Nothing takes me down faster than the “Charlie Brown Christmas Special,” so I Googled it up and it did not disappoint.  It was just as depressing as I remembered.

My cousins and I watched it every year, locked in my Grandmother’s small front room with a kitchen towel wedged in the door frame. I have no idea what possessed adults to inflict this torture on their offspring, other than maybe payback for horrific labours and stolen youth.

Even as a child I thought that Charlie Brown television specials were probably the most depressing children’s programming that ever there was. To be fair, “Charlie Brown Christmas” first aired in 1965, and while this was long before the concept of self-esteem for children was part of the parenting “toolbox,” I still think someone at the originating network was a kid-hater. Five minutes into my YouTube revival and the Peanuts kids had already called each other “stupid,” “hopeless,” and “dumb.” I’m pretty confident “asshole” and “douche-bag” sit reluctantly on the cutting room floor, due only to FCC interference.

So, hey, MERRY FREAKIN’ CHRISTMAS, ya stupid dipshit blockhead!

I read several of the articles outlining the upcoming movie and it appears  that Charles Schultz’s son and grandson will write the movie screenplay, which sounds like a lot of work when you first think about it. But really, how much work is needed for something consisting mostly of depressing tuba music and a lot of WahWahWAH?

Children’s television programming completely devoid of parental presence freaks me out. It’s best not to give my kids get any ideas. I’ve seen the way my son eyes me up after an episode of “Max and Ruby.” Like Max, my son also has a big sister, and the rooms in our house are an odd jumble of coloured, mismatched wallpapers. This boy could be living “la vida orphan” if given the opportunity. No; best not provide a match for that fire.

There’s no word yet on the upcoming movie’s plot, but I’m hoping it somehow explains why so many children in the Peanuts gang have only four greasy hairs on their head. Was having the hair of a retired plumbing parts salesman from Indiana normal for the children of this era? And I’m no professional, but why isn’t Charlie Brown seeing a self-esteem therapist? And could someone please just lock Lucy in a cold cellar?

Charlie Brown television and movie plots really are just the most depressing media events ever. I can’t wait to see what they come up with for the new original movie.Stay tuned until 2015 for my review on “Save our Playground/Abandoned Nuclear Reactor Plant, Charlie Brown!”

I hope they all get “Hair Club” memberships for Christmas

The $12 Christmas Castle

At Christmas 1980, I was seven years old. I wanted a Lite-Brite, a Spirograph with coloured pens, and a Barbie Dream Castle.

Christmas morning I got pajamas, books, Tomy fashion plates, and purple soap-on-a-rope that smelled like my grandmother’s bathroom. The gifts came in green and gold wrapping that very closely resembled the living room wallpaper. I’m sure I received other presents as well, but between the ether like smell of that soap and the psychedelic wallpaper, my memories up until the spring of 1981 are pretty fuzzy.

So I didn’t get the dream castle. My friend Joanne did.* Joanne had a pink bedroom with a matching Sears furniture set, two parents, and a jewellery box with jewellery in it. I had a jewellery box too, but the musical ballerina was long gone and it held only candy wrappers and a dime store ring my grandfather bought my at the Parry Sound Mall near our cottage. It was the most beautiful ring I have ever owned.

I’ve also always been a bit of a bleeding heart left winger, and a homeless Barbie was out of the question, so I did what I had to do: I got to work building her a house out of empty beer cases. (Actually, I built a Barbie sub-division and strip mall. There were enough beer cases.) I used pink quilted toilet paper for the curtains and bed spreads and tinfoil wrapped around a cigarette package made an excellent large screen television for Barbie’s Wizard of Oz movie parties. Barbie had a waterbed made from a half filled Ziploc sandwich bag stuffed into a Tupperware ice cream keeper. The plastic safety cap from a disposable razor made a great bedside alarm clock, although Barbie usually slept through it, what with being exhausted from all those late night movie parties and having a super cozy waterbed.  We used a juice container and string to pull her up the side of the boxes, just like the elevator on the “real” Barbie house did. I had the best customized Barbie beer case castle you’ve ever seen, and I made it.

You can bet Barbie loved it too. What independant women wouldn’t want to live alone in a 7-storey building that smelled like a frat house? Who amongst us would not appreciate corrogated cardboard walls upon which to pin fashion plate tennis queen wallpaper? Hasn’t everyone at one point or another wished for a “Old South” carton to transport them to their 5th floor popcan toilet?

That’s why Santa will bring the Lego, the Air Hogs helicopter, the Cars 2 movie, the camouflage clothing, and yes – God help us – probably even the catapult.

The iPod touch and 1 trillion dollars can wait until another year.
____________________________________________________________________________

* names have been changed to protect the lucky, selfish, ungrateful people who make fun of others for having only dime store rings and candy wrappers in their jewellery boxes.

 

Smells like Pre-Menopause Spirit

Tuesday was my first day back at school for the winter semester. I should have gone back Monday, but I read the start date on my schedule as 10/01/11 and my brain told me, “Jeni, you go back to school on January the 11^th. Make sure you wear pants.” My brain is smart enough to remind me to wear pants, but not smart enough to notice that the actual date is January 10^th, 2011. I really need to start wearing a helmet when I ride my bike.

In the class I remembered to go to today, the Professor asked our small group of 20 or so to introduce ourselves. I won’t relay them all, but here are some approximate statistics:  

• 6 students are applying to a graduate program, after which they will likely apply to teacher’s college
• 7 students are applying directly to a Teacher’s college
• 1 student had a really wrinkly neck,  muffin top and corn chips in her teeth, and is now seriously re-evaluating her  plans to apply to teacher’s college

Here’s a typical introduction:

“Hi. I am a fourth year English major, minoring in bio-medical sciences. I spent the last semester abroad where I compiled a detailed thesis on the complete works of every great modern author. I also just returned from a winter holiday at a health spa retreat in the Mediterranean– that’s why my hair is so shiny, and I have a youthful glow. After graduation I have been accepted to Graduate School with a full scholarship. I belong to Greenpeace, PETA, the Student Council, play forward on the soccer team, write for the University Newspaper, head up the local Amnesty International Chapter and play bass and keyboards in a band. I organize the annual food bank drive to feed the homeless and I am looking forward to what this year brings!”

Then she did a cart-wheel.

My introduction was slightly less stellar:

“Hi. I’m Jeni. I don’t understand metric , skinny jeans, or what ‘bio-medical’ means. I own several pairs of brightly coloured velour pants. I forget what year I am at in my program here, but I think it’s eleventy-four. I spent my Christmas break learning Bakugan attributes forcibly at the hands of a tyrant in a Transformers housecoat, pulling Lego out of the vacuum cleaner and giving CPR to a wet hamster. My 6-year-old son has started getting up at 2am every morning and that’s why the bags under my eyes are darker than my future employment prospects. The last things I read were “Franklin gets a Friend” and the Poison Control Centre pamphlet. After graduation I will be wondering how many overtime shifts at Tim Horton’s I will need to work to pay off my student loan. I kick ass at Rockband vocals and haven’t dusted my house since ‘Friends’ went off the air. (That was a show with Courtney Cox before she moved to Cougartown.) This morning I told my son there were no chocolate chip muffins left and then ate the last four of them in the bathroom with the tap running.”

They smiled and nodded. They’re polite, these kids.

They’re also optimistic, assured, confident, and young. They are bright-eyed, energetic and enthusiastic. They have their entire lives ahead of them and they deserve every opportunity the work they do here brings forth.

How the hell am I going to compete with that?

They make me feel old.

But I truly do want them to have all the best life has to offer.

I also want to kick them in their well-toned-skinny-jean-clad-tropical-vacation-tanned-shins.

The Day After

My living room looks like the set of every post-Apocolyptic movie, but with a sprinkling of dead Poinsettia leaves thrown in for festive measure.

A random sampling contains: Nerf machine gun bullets, a half built Bionicle, assorted playing cards, a chocolate Santa Claus torso, sticky wine glasses, a Nutcracker’s beard pulled off by bickering siblings, bits of sparkly wrapping paper, candy wrappers, a popcorn box, a bamboo cutting board,  a partially unwrapped cell phone charger, Styrofoam packing peanuts and ten thousand marbles (low estimate.) There is enough stuff in here to stock the toy, electronics, and craft supply aisles of a decent sized department store.

Right now my son is making a house from the cardboard box my gift came in and a pack of crayons we’ve owned since the Clinton Administration.  

Other years I’d have had it tidied by now, but this year I’m experiencing a stronger than usual case of post holiday “dontwanndoanythingitis.” The other factor is that Santa brought Wii Rockband and a Kitchen-Aid mixer to our house. I’ve been rocking it out for the last three days, stopping only to throw together another layer cake or batch of muffins. I’m going to weigh 40 pounds more than I did at the beginning of December, but if I can get the 6 year-old to tighten his drum solo, we’ll be too famous a Rock band to care.

This year I also discovered something that hurts more than Lego when you step on it: Beyblades. Have these come to your house yet? They’re glorified spinning tops with metal edges and you start them by pulling sharp serrated whips. It’s a good thing my son got three boxes of band-aids for Christmas, because he only has skin left on two knuckles. (Side rant: One package of band-aids proclaims “Free Gift Inside!” Is the gift of a properly healed, infection free wound no longer enough for children? “Well, sure; I prevented gangrene and practiced proper hygiene, but WHERE THE HELL IS MY FREE GOOGLY EYED MONSTER STICKER?”

It appears that Beyblades are most effectively played when wearing red velour housecoats and war paint swiped from your sister’s new make-up kit.  Shouts of “ATTACK! Storm Pegasus! Rock Leone! ATTTTACCCKKKK!” and  high-pitched primal screaming precede small metal disks spinning out of nowhere at speeds upwards of 110 mph. The purpose of the game seems to be to chew chunks of flesh from unsuspecting ankles.

ANKLES THAT DID NOTHING TO DESERVE THIS.

He Brings the Party

Somehow, after 37 Christmas celebrations, countless retellings of  Christ’s birth story, and at least 2 midnight mass attendances, I still managed to miss the part of the spear wielding caped Lego skeleton riding in on a horse to be part of the Nativity.

When you have kids, you learn so much. 

Cheese Club

According to my Advil Advent calendar, Christmas is just over a week away. Until now I felt that I had everything under control in the holiday planning department – most of the gifts we need have been bought, wrapped, and are under the tree. My annual manifesto Christmas letter is almost complete; I’m just holding off with some of the details until I see how the judge makes his ruling. I’ve written my final exams for the semester and with the kids still in school for the rest of the week I finally have some time for leisurely pursuits like my annual leg shaving.

There are just a few people we still hadn’t bought gifts for, so PM and I headed out this afternoon, determined to buy everything we needed today. But after all the shopping I’ve been doing recently, I was exhausted after half an hour into the trip.

(Actually it was probably the episode earlier at a Big Box Home Store that sapped my energy. I’m sorry, but when there are more than 6 people in a check-out line and the cashier is interviewing each customer and counting out their change in pennies I cannot be held responsible for my actions. I’m also thinking that most of my shopping will soon have to be done primarily online for legal reasons.)

We decided to be brave and go to the Price Club. By the time we had walked the 40 acres from our parking spot, I was done.  PM and I made plans to split the list and meet after an hour. The next thing I knew I was being woken up by a lady in a smock poking me in the face with a tray of European cheese samples. I took her tray and went to find PM. He was looking at electric saunas.  

“Hi there!”  He was cheerful. “Look what I found while you were napping on the doggie beds.”

I peered into his Hyundai sized shopping cart and said, “I was tired. That car tire sized wheel of Gouda made me drowsy.” I picked through the stuff in the cart.  “Are these the gifts?”

“Um…yeah. Yeah; they are.”

“Huh. Who are the pickled asparagus and sledgehammer for?”

“We’re playing Secret Santa at work.”

“Hmm. What about the 40-pack of mousetraps, 2 qt. jar of Cheez Whiz  and the 2011 Monster Truck Encyclopedia?”

“My Mom.”

“Lucky lady. And what’s that?” I asked, pointing to something at the bottom of the cart. “Everything in this cart is for us, isn’t it?”

“I got some pancake mix…” he started.

“That’s a bag of powdered drywall spackle!”

“…and a frying pan that makes snowflake shaped pancakes!”

“For the spackle?”

“If it’s shaped like a snowflake and covered with maple syrup the kids aren’t even going to notice.”  He seemed confident.

“Did you find Rock Band 3 for the Wii?” I asked.

“No; but are you sure the kids even want it?”  He didn’t seem convinced.

“Absolutely! Yes! Kind of. Probably. I mean, when I mentioned it they didn’t say no…exactly.”

“You told me they were begging for it.”

“Because I think it will be good for them.  They need the guitar practice.”

“The Rock Band guitar is an electronic stick with push buttons on it.”

I pressed on. “Regardless, They should master the bass pedal and high hat on the drum kit. Plus, I think they are ready to understand the pressures of the road.”

“Jeni…Jeni, put the cheese down. You are never going to ‘go’ again if you don’t lay off the dairy. And you know that you’re not really in a band, right? It’s a game…something you do for fun – like karaoke or home dentistry. And you really need to stop referring to your minivan as ‘the tour bus.’ I should tell you that people are starting to talk.”

When we left he had to pull his toque down to cover the snowflake shaped red mark on his forehead.

Critical Condition

 

I am absolutely oozing with Christmas spirit

My ex-husband and I took the kids to watch a Santa Claus parade.   

I wasn’t in this particular one, but in 1978 I did twirl a baton in the parade with my dance school class. But I’ve never been very coordinated, so it’s probably more accurate to say that what I actually did was walk down Main St. in red tights throwing a cold metal bar at unsuspecting lookers-on.

This year’s parade was pretty good, but as with most things, there was room for improvement. I was about five minutes into an analytical commentary of the festivities when my ex interrupted me.

“Do you realize you haven’t said one positive thing since we’ve been here?”

“I did so. I said ‘thanks for the coffee.’”

“But then you complained because I didn’t have a flask of Bailey’s in my pocket.”

“Well it’s common sense!” Really, some people just don’t get it.

“Then you said they should have a coffee only line at the bakery, because the people in front of you were taking too long with their order.”

“Who orders 24 cupcakes and a Bundt cake to eat at a parade?”

My daughter chimed in. “Neggggggaaaativeeee…”

My son said, “I want cake!”

I thought about this negativity claim for a minute. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. I’ve been called a cynical pessimist and worse. My personal favorite is “dream killer.”

Some people may view it that way, but I think they are idealistic wieners. 

I couldn’t let this go. “I have so said nice things.”

“What, then?”

“I said that it wasn’t as bad as last year.”

“Jeni, you pointed out every grammatical error on the banners, said Santa’s elves looked drunk, that the brass band were ‘totally phoning it in,’ and that you couldn’t believe how lazy the dancing tiny-tots are.”

“Well come on! Their parents were pulling them in freaking wagons! It’s not a “get-pulled-in-a-wagon-school.”

“But it’s a five mile parade!”

“Hey, I survived it. In tights, with no toque on, and nobody pulled me in a wagon.”

“That’s because parents didn’t love their kids until the late 80’s.”  

So on top of the internet and Bakugan, that’s just one more thing my children can be thankful for.

Oops, sorry. Was that negative?

She spelled "nags" wrong

Incommunicado

I think my BlackBerry is making me stupid. Or co-dependent. Or some other adjective that denotes dumbness that I can’t muster the brain power to think of.

It appears that I’ve become one of “those” people - the kind of person completely dependent on their cell phone. I used to laugh at those people. I used to hate those people, and still kinda do. But at the same time I never considered not having one. Why not give up zippers and pasteurization while you’re at it? When one friend explained to me that she doesn’t carry a cell phone, it was as if she said she ate puppies for breakfast and thought using toilet paper was “over-rated.”

The kids and I were out for dinner  Saturday night when I discovered my BlackBerry cold and dead at the bottom of my purse amid a crime scene of broken crayons and gum wrappers. And I had no way to charge it. (My phone charger broke when I used it to secure the Christmas tree to the roof of my van.) So now I was completely cut off from society. We were headed to the movies, and PM was going to meet us there. When I realized I wouldn’t be able to reach him for the standard last-minute meeting update, I got shaky. Finally I pulled myself together and remembered that he said he’d meet us at 6pm.

We arrived at the theatre I saw his truck in the parking lot, but I didn’t see him anywhere inside. I couldn’t text him, and I couldn’t call. I was completely without agency.

I started freaking out.  

What should I do? Should I go ahead and buy movie tickets? Had he already bought them? Should I get some snacks? What would he want? Was he hurt somewhere? Had he tripped on a patch of ice? Was he now lying under a Honda Civic in the parking lot, only 150 feet away, but unable to call me for help because I was a phoneless idiot who used her phone charger as a bungee cord?

What kind of partner was I? WHAT KIND OF PERSON WAS I?

I didn’t know what to do. I lost all ability to rationalize. My problem solving skills and reason had evaporated right along with my BlackBerry’s flux capacitor. I turned around and around in a circle, arms outspread, dumbfounded and incoherent. My son thought we were playing the spinning game and got dizzy and barfed gummy worms on my shoe.  

So…cold…I…I…I can’t feel my legs…

Going to the movies had never been so stressful. Lying on the sticky theatre floor, I recalled the carefree movie going days of my youth:

 Me: Wanna go to the movies tonight?

Them: Sure.

End of planning. Hours later we’d be in our seats, drinking apricot brandy from a canning jar swiped from my parent’s cold cellar, smuggled inside a Hyundai-sized purple pleather handbag. No cell phones were necessary in the planning of the event. Why? Because we trusted each other to be where we said we would be, when we said we would be there. We didn’t call each other 17 times to arrange meeting times, or text to discuss show choices, or Blackberry PIN someone at the snack bar to instruct them what snacks to buy. We used our brains and common sense, not our fingers and a keyboard. 

Things happened organically. If you were at the theatre, you watched the movie. If you sent a friend to get the snacks, they made a choice. Your friend could be late for the movies and you’d assume she was running late because she couldn’t find her keys, not because she was lying underneath her car, frantically wishing someone would invent the cell phone so she could call for assistance.

I miss those days.

But not as much as I miss knowing where my people are every moment of the day, and so tomorrow I will be picking up microchip homing devices…er…phone chargers for stocking stuffers.

 

highly irritable has been nominated as a “Top Blog”  at Babble.com.

If you like what you’ve read here, I’d love your vote. And you loved it, right? In fact, you’re calling all your friends now to tell them about it aren’t you? I don’t care what everyone says about you; you’re sweet. 

Here’s the link for voting: VOTE HIGHLY IRRITABLE.

Toastmistress

The kids and I are at their school for the annual Christmas Craft night, building gingerbread houses and cookie churches. Happy families surround us. They are smiling at one another – wearing matching sweaters, humming Christmas carols and building crosses from popsicle sticks and Smarties. Positive and encouraging comments punctuate the snippets of conversation I can overhear.

At our table, my 6-year-old son is giving me the stink eye and whining. “I’m hungry! Why didn’t we eat dinner?”  He is sucking royal icing straight from the decorating bag. My daughter is practicing her ‘mortified with a hint of haughty’ look across the table.  

She asks me, “So what do you think I should do my speech on this year? I’m kinda worried about it.”

She has to participate in a public speaking competition this year. She doesn’t want to. I don’t know why; there is almost nothing I like more than speaking or the public. (I’d run for office, but I’m much too bossy and would monopolize parliament, leading to a) my eventual assisted removal, or b) some sort of international incident. It’d be a mess, trust me.)

I’ve never understood how public speaking got to #2 on the list of popular fears, coming even before death. There’s nothing to it! It’s as easy as cutting your own hair!  But I recognize that this fear can socially cripple some people, and I want her to be good at it. Because I do it well, I want her to excel at it. She feels remarkably less excited, and while she is certainly not a shy child, she does become mortified when I start discussing things like natural childbirth with groups of complete strangers, some of whom – to be fair – care little for the subject matter. Quickie Lube oil change guys, I’m looking at you.

So I suggest that she do her speech on something she enjoys and feels comfortable talking about; something that will grab the audience’s attention. It should also be interesting and teach them something they didn’t already know. But above all else it must be something she is passionate about.

“I was thinking of doing it about dogs,” she says.

“Nah. Every third kid in your class will be doing a speech on dogs. NO dog speeches. How about farts? That’d be awesome. You can talk about how it’s something everyone does, no one admits to, etc. Then you can leave the audience hanging until the end to find out what you are talking about.”

“Mother. Be serious.”  I’m getting THE LOOK.

“What? If handled properly, this one will take you to the finals. THE FINALS!” I’m disappointed she’s not going for it, plus I’ve already starting making bullet point index cards and making up fart classification names in my head.

“Fine. What are you passionate about then?”

“Passionate?”

“You know; what gets you all riled up? Good or bad? What could you talk about all day and what do you spend every social interaction hoping someone will ask you about? What do you lie awake at night for want of? What topic do you try to weave into every conversation you are having? WHAT MAKES YOUR HEART WANT TO KEEP BEATING?”

Suddenly I’m the Dad in the “We’re Not Gonna Take it” video. I’m in her face shouting, “WHADDA YOU WANNA DO WITH YOUR LIFE?” People are leaving the gym.

“Oh; that.” Luckily she’s pretty non affected by my personality disorder.

I repeat the question. “So? What are your passions?”

“Cheese. And bacon. And music.”

(She’s awesome.)

“Okay. What els…” But I can’t finish because I’ve tapped a vein and she’s bleeding all over the school gymnasium floor. Families are looking and whispering behind cupped hands now.               

“People who say BAY-Gul! It’s a bag-el, or nothing! Commercials that ask “Why buy anywhere else? WHAT IF I WANT TO? How does a telephone work? Cinnamon Toast Crunch!  Thinking about what’s going to happen in the future.  Skinny Jeans, BUT NOT jeggings.  Shiny things. Taking pictures. Taking pictures of shiny things! My hair – it’s really quite lovely! Taking pictures of my shiny hair! Doing high kicks. Cinnamon Toast Crunch – did I say that already? Singing in the Shower. Doing high kicks in the shower!”

“Okay. That’s more like it!” I reach over and s-l-o-w-l-y take the icing bag away from her. “You’ve got some great options and original ideas there. What are you gonna pick?”

She thinks about it for .003 seconds.

“No question. Dogs!”

Personality: It’s Written in the Stars

 

My son is in grade one this year, and so far, seems to be adjusting to the full day curriculum nicely. He eats his  garlic marinated tomatoes and prosciutto from a  Spiderman thermos and he is coping well with wearing  pants after 2 pm. But the biggest change is the homework. It’s small amounts – no more than a few minutes a night, and all within his capabilities, so no big battles as of yet. He prefers we do our homework together, so while he’s formulating single digit math, I’m formulating how to turn “I had laundry to fold and children to feed” into an extension on my final English paper.

This last week he brought home a note from his science teacher. The grade one class is studying sunlight and shadows, and the teacher provided a study sheet for a small quiz they will be writing next week.

He seems to enjoy this topic. So now I’m thinking maybe a telescope for Christmas. He owns every Bakugan in existence and we don’t need any more clothing featuring flaming dinosaur skeletons driving monster trucks. I’m sure he won’t be too upset if we take “DOG or something LEGO or anything at Toy’s R Us but NOT Mermaid Ponies” off the list and substitute a junior telescope. He can learn about the planetary system; perhaps discover a new star or comet. Seeing as the latest thing around our house is adding “EXTRAVAGANZA!” to everything to make it sound better (instead of boring events like having macaroni for dinner, or putting the laundry away, we have “PASTA EXTRAVAGANZA!”  Or “CLEAN CLOTHING EXTRAVAGANZA!”) he’ll name a new star something like “Super hot, really hot, flaming lava far away ball of fire EXTRAVAGANZA!”

I can’t wait until this summer’s ”Tetanus Booster Needle EXTRAVAGANZA!” That’s gonna rock.

So I broached the subject of space study with him. “This is pretty neat stuff, eh? All this space shizz?” (I try to use the proper scientific vernacular and lingo when speaking to my children. It makes them way more smarter.) Our talk then turned to solar eclipses and eye protection. I told him that for some solar events, people need to wear proper vision protection or they could go blind, suffer from acne and grow hair on their palms. It has to be special glass, although some people say that just looking through coloured glass was enough.  

He picked up an empty brown beer bottle from the counter and looked out the window through it. It was dark out – in late fall the sun sets in Ontario around 10am – and he couldn’t see anything. “This one doesn’t work,” he said. He turned around and peered through the thick glass, pretending it was a telescope now. 

Then he trained his view on me. Looking directly at me through the beer bottle he declared, “I can see Uranus from here!”

It’s called allegory, people. And it’s everywhere.