Category Archives: Beauty and the Beast

August 11, 2007 · 12:14 am

Breaking News

This just in… Luke Skywalker, of Star Wars fame, was injured in a Y-Wing crash yesterday. R2D2 immediately responded by turning himself into a medical droid and attempting to shock Luke Skywalker back to health. The “shocking procedure” is quite shocking in nature as it entailed R2D2 straddling Luke’s face as Luke lay prone on the bed. As promising as this procedure looked, it failed to revive Luke and so he was transported to the hospital, where a bed was constructed for him out of Kleenex. Luke was left there to recover.

The crash is still under investigation but it appears that it was not caused by Darth Vader’s use of the Force. An anonymous witness to the crash stated that Luke “couldn’t steer because too much wind blew back his hand” and Darth Vader was observed trying to stop the oncoming crash by taking the Y-Wing to the battle station. Because he was unsuccessful, a crash recovery team will be tasked with transporting the Y-Wing back to the battle station for repair.

Darth Vader, in what appears to be a change of heart spent the afternoon at the injured Luke’s side, taking care of him. Princess Leia, Luke’s sister and one of the seven faces of Belle, was surprised at the news of her father’s actions. “But I thought he was a bad guy!” she said.

A different unnamed witness came forth and reported that after the crash a “strange character” had been spotted in the vicinity. The character at first appeared to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast. That information could not be verified because the witness admitted that the strange character’s face could not be seen. However, it has been confirmed that the character was wearing all of Belle’s clothing at once. The character reportedly floated in the air and said “Hello!” to the real Belle who happened to be passing by on her way to the refrigerator to grab a can of Diet Coke. The real Belle commented that “You look very warm in all of those clothes with that coat on” and the figure responded, “There’s nobody here, I’m just a bunch of scary dresses!” The real Belle screamed in terror and ran away.

The distraught Belle was later reached by telephone where an accusing voice cried “Where did you put the Storm Trooper’s bodies? They were in your bed!” Not wanting to be caught in any kind of infidelity, Belle at first tried the Iran Contra defense where she stated that she couldn’t “recall” a situation where Storm Troopers had shared her bed. Later though, when it was, in fact, revealed that the Storm Troopers had been found under Belle’s nightgown, she resorted to using the Shaggy defense and claimed “It wasn’t me!”

Further confusing the investigation is a somewhat recovered Luke Skywalker who is now claiming that he was not the one flying the Y-Wing at the time of its crash. He has denied his involvement and claimed “The ‘LEGO guy’ was flying the ship.” Additionally, he claims that he is “Luke from a different movie.”

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming where I admit that I was playing with the LEGOs I spoke of here. But only for a little while. It turns out that when a company prints on the box that a toy is for children ages 8 and up, you really ought to heed their warning. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself having to assemble the toy yourself because your five year old is unable to do so.

Then shortly afterward, your son will drop the Y-Wing you so lovingly spent four hours assembling for him, and one million of the 17 trillion pieces will shear off upon impact and scatter all over your kitchen. Some will land in the dog’s water bowl, some will slip under the refrigerator, and some more will slide under the door to the basement and fall down the steps where you won’t find them again until you step on them with your bare foot. This will leave a LEGO impression on your foot that stays for a full 36 hours.

At that point you will be forced to consider whether or not you repaired the Y-Wing adequately after its initial crash. Perhaps if you had actually moved the refrigerator to get at the “unrecoverable” pieces, the craft might have been more stable. Perhaps a more stable aircraft would have spared Luke Skywalker from such severe injuries.

You can choose to debate this. You can write both NASA and the NTSB to get their ruling on the incident. Or, you could resort to your original premise that the “witness” to the crash is simply crazy. Especially since he is claiming HE is the REAL Luke Skywalker, and it was “the LEGO guy” that crashed the plane. Also, because he is five, and makes “scary dresses” talk.

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Filed under Beauty and the Beast, breaking news, humor, insanity, LEGOs, Luke Skywalker, Star Wars, toys, Y-Wing

July 29, 2007 · 11:37 pm

Faster Than A…

How fast is fast? Maybe it depends what you’re measuring. Or who you’re asking.

Surely, at some point, you’ve had a passenger in your car tell you to “SLOW DOWN! You’re driving too fast!”

No? Okay, maybe it’s just me. But then I AM used to driving on the interstate everyday and I’m just trying to keep up with the rest of the traffic, officer. And here’s a little hint I learned from a bus driver. Sometimes, the slow lanes, especially the ones that merge, actually move way faster than the far left lane, the one everyone dubs “the fast lane”. Try it sometime. Only, not on MY highway, okay? I don’t want EVERYONE to know my secrets.

But I digress, because this isn’t about traffic. It’s about my son’s perception of how to measure the passing of time, and the quickness with which events can take place. We were in the car, and I was driving him to school (okay, so maybe this is about traffic) and he was, as usual, talking at me about his current favorite Disney characters from Beauty and the Beast (and yes, I did mean to say “at me”).

Apparently, the Beast and Belle, along with Cogsworth and Lumiere, (if you’re unclear on whose these characters are, I suggest you rent the movie) were up to some kind of shenanigans in my son’s bedroom (and I apologize here for not giving more details, but sometimes I have to tune out from his stories, especially when I’m driving). If you’re a parent, his teacher, a neighbor, or a relative who’s spent any time with the kid, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

But anyway, apparently, whatever these characters were up to, they did it all very fast. “BAM! Fast like that!” “Faster,” my son proclaimed, “than you can count to 22! Faster than you can cook!”

Faster than I can cook? “Faster than I can cook what?” I wondered. Are we talking a seven course meal or Kraft Dinner? Am I watching a pot boil or can I use the microwave? Because it makes a difference here, it really does.

And so I timed myself. I can count to 22, speaking at a moderately fast pace, but still slowly enough to enunciate correctly, in 12 seconds. That’s pretty fast, I think. Speaking even faster, still believing most people would be able to understand me, I can count to 22 in a mere 7 seconds. That’s a whole 5 seconds faster!

You’re not impressed. I can tell. But look, I never claimed to be the speed talk guy who reads the fine print on television commercials. That guy? Now he’s fast!

Back to my original point though. Whatever those characters were up to, if it took them somewhere in the range of 7 to 12 seconds to pull it off, that’s pretty good. I think it’s fast enough to avoid getting caught in the act by most folks. But obviously, not fast enough to get by my son. Because obviously, he saw them do this, and not only that, he timed them! After all, he described to me a way to measure their quickness! If he was a super hero, maybe he’d be “Stopwatch Boy – The Kid That Never Misses a Trick!”.

Anyway, I guess my real point is (and no, I didn’t see this coming either. I thought this was going to lead back to traffic), with kids that quick (and yes, all children are so quick that NOTHING gets by them), it explains why parents these days have so little oppurtunity for intimacy. It’s not like we can grab a quickie, because well, we just aren’t THAT fast.

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Filed under Beauty and the Beast, driving, humor, kids, parenting, quickie, sex, time

July 18, 2007 · 12:22 am

WHAT Did You Say?!

Several times now my son Snags, who is 5, has uttered a word that sounded suspiciously four-letterish in a curse word sounding sort of way.

A few weeks ago my husband and I thought he might have said “shit” and we questioned him on it. Or should I say, we held what could best be described as an inquisition. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?!” My husband nearly roared.

“Nothing!” Snags responded.

“Yes you did. You said something. Now tell me, what did you say?”

“Nothing!” Snags lied, a smile beginning to spread on his face. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes you did,” my husband insisted. “I HEARD you say something. Now tell me, what was it that you said?”

“Chip!” Snags responded. “I said Chip. Like Chip! Where are you?”

Now the thing is, Snags MAY have been telling the truth. Because at the time he uttered what he claims was “Chip!” but what we think was actually “Shit!” he was playing on the floor with a Beauty and the Beast playset, and “Chip” the broken teacup character, is a part of that playset. And he’s really, really tiny too. About the size of a toddler’s pinky nail. So Snags, he claimed he had lost Chip, and was simply calling his name to find him. Because tiny toys will answer you if you call them, right?

And then Snags added, “I didn’t say a naughty word!” Only it came out like “I didn’t say a NAWTEE wurd.

But you see, we never suggested he’d said a NAWTEE wurd.

What’s that saying? “The lady doth protest too much”? Well, methinks the kid was lying. Probably. Maybe. But… I’m not sure.

Then tonight, as he was climbing the stairs from the basement to the kitchen Snags uttered something else.

When questioned on it, he claimed he said “Buck!”

My husband though, wasn’t convinced. He questioned Snags over and over:

“I said BUCK!” Snags kept insisting.

“That’s not what it sounded like,” said my husband. So then he questioned ME. Only I was typing on the computer (like what else is new) and I wasn’t really paying attention to what Snags had said.

“What does “Buck!” mean?” My husband asked Snags.

“It means a dollar,” Snags replied.

My husband thought about this for a few moments and said, to me: “Well, I don’t even think he knows that OTHER word, does he?”

To which Snags retorted, “You’re right! I don’t know that other word.”

Later, I called Snags over to me and whispered, “What did you say earlier when you were going up the stairs?”

And he looked at me with puppy dog eyes and said, “I didn’t say the dirty word dad thought I said!”

“What dirty word did he think you said?” I asked.

He paused. “I don’t know!” he said.

So I asked, “Well, what dirty word do you think he thought you said?”

And still, Snags said, “I don’t know!”

So I’m left here thinking either this kid really is innocent and hasn’t gone off spouting dirty “wurds” or he’s a champ at covering for himself!

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