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

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.

 

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