Went and saw Beauty and the Beast, and I just had to share my experience because it was so pure?
So, like, I get into the theater, find myself a nice spot smack dab midscreen, which is WAY EASIER without thirty people traipsing in behind you in a group, lemme tell you, and I’m just sitting there, by my lonesome, scrolling tumblr and watching whatever weird stuff they’ve got on screen, and a family comes to sit in my row, which was the only empty one not right in front of the screen. Sat down what I thought was a seat away from me until I saw a little girl in an adorable ass red dress climbing over mom and dad to sit next to me.
Totally fine. I was just off of center and they got to sit right in the middle of the screen, and when she finally gets settled this little girl looks up at me, with a soda half her size in one hand, and somehow both popcorn and candy in her tiny little lap, and she stage whispers to her mom:
“She’s by herself!”
Mom looks embarrassed, but I smile and wave off the apology.
I go back to my phone, only to realize someone is tugging at my sleeve. Little girl looks up at me, all wide eyes and curiosity, and holds out a napkin filled with popcorn and chocolate. Like, I remember being a kid, and I remember how important candy and popcorn at the theater are, and I think she thought she was saving my life by offering this sustenance.
I almost fucking cried guys, kids are the best.
So I take it and thank her and let her talk my ear off for a few minutes until she needs a drink because she has been talking SO MUCH her mouth is dry. This kid is going places, guys, I’m telling you right now, because she picked up that cup the size of her torso like a champ and angled the straw just right and continued to try to talk to me around her gulps.
While this is happening, on the other side of me another mom and daughter sat down, and, turns out, the girls know each other. I’m guessing, based on the gumption of Red Dress, that they probably met in the lobby before they went into the theater.
Girl number 2, I’ll call her Princess Dress, because it was a fantastic dress and when I told her so she proceeded to point to every princess along the neck and name them and give me their Stats, proceeds to have a conversation across me with Red Dress.
Both sets of parents were looking like they wanted to bury their heads in their hands, but I was having a blast.
Anyway, eventually lights go down, we get into the movie, and for the most part Red and Princess were content, although every so often Red made sure to pass me a handful of sticky half-melted chocolate.
Watching a live action version of a movie that I watched for the first time when I was their age was a fuckin’ trip, man. Like. I got super emotional over things I didn’t expect to, and during the wolf scenes I was actually mildly distressed, because Princess was gripping the hand rest so hard on my right I thought she was gonna break it. Any scene I laughed or snorted at got a peal of laughter from my two new best friends, so hopefully no one has to go home and explain why I nearly snorted out my drink during “Be Our Guest” when they went for a visual gag for “After all miss, this is France!”.
During the ballroom scene, Red turned to her mom and whispered “The Beast is handsome!” and it took so much for me not to lean over and whisper back “Girl same.”
But my favorite, MY VERY FAVORITE part of this whole experience was when Gaston shot the Beast – FOR THE THIRD TIME HOLY HELL I KNEW IT WAS DARK BUT GODDAMN THIS IS A KIDS MOVIE ISN’T IT – Red patted my arm because yeah, okay, I was maybe crying a little, look, I know what happens but the movie made me feel things okay. Anyway, she like, pushes herself up in her seat and leans in close and she goes “It’s okay. He’s gonna be okay.”
The point is, children are so pure, and everyone should always watch movies with strangers.
“My mother-in-law was baking one of her awesome Black Forest cakes for my sister-in-law’s birthday. She left the cake cooling and when she went to look…”
A little girl and her mom were looking at me at the coffee shop this morning and I heard her mom say “go on, it’s ok!” and the little girl shuffled up to me and said “ex-cuse me please, do you have to put on your tattoos by yourself every DAY or does your mom help you?” I am d y i n g
Literally heard a convo at the library where a guy was telling a girl that he’s an omega and the girl telling him that she’s a beta, and my mind just did not automatically connect the context to fraternity pledge classes at all and I just whispered to myself “what the fuck?? What the fuck??”
this is from a real diary by a 13-year-old girl in 1870. teenage girls are awesome and they’ve always been that way.
Read this – oh my goodness, this girl was wonderful.
Photos of two book pages. One page reads: Have come across such a glorious book called ‘Boys Play Book of Science.’ Am going to read it through and see if whether ain’t some experiments Bess and I can try. Won’t it be jolly if we really can? But it takes money money money even for the privilege of blowing one’s self up … The other page reads: When I got home I found that Netty had thrown away our tongue and eyes, and worst of all woe woe is me that our skeleton that had taken us 3 mortal hours to get, had fallen out of the window and smashed. Oh Science! Why will thou not protect thy votaries? [worshippers] In the afternoon lolled around learnt Greek and sewed everlasting slippers. Bess said when she told her father about our getting the mouse he looked grave and said, Bessie Bessie thee is losing all thy feminine traits. I’m afraid I haven’t got any to lose for I greatly prefer cutting up mice to sewing.
My class 10/10 lost the plot today. I don’t even know where to start or how to explain to their parents that I think they’ve all turned into tiny little rebels.
9:10 – we are studying a report about Chernobyl in guided reading. Several are looking at me gone out when I explain that nuclear power can be dangerous. “So why use it?” one asks. Why indeed.
9:12 – we are now discussing renewable energy. Several more express outrage and ask why the country doesn’t have to use renewable energy. Several more state that we should avoid pollution because it kills polar bears and stuff right, Miss?
9:13 – I mention that it’s a complicated issue because of different viewpoints, and that certain people, say Drumpf, don’t believe in climate change.
9:14 – chaos.
9:15 – small child suggests someone murder Drumpf. I say that murder is both bad and illegal.
9:16 – the class have learned the word impeach and are shouting IMPEACH TRUMP IMPEACH TRUMP IMPEACH TRUMP while banging on the tables.
9:17 – headteacher comes in to see what is going on. Small child tells him quite angrily that SOME PEOPLE JUST DECIDE TO NOT BELIEVE IN SCIENCE WHICH YOU CAN’T DO BECAUSE IT’S SCIENCE. He backs out of the room quite quickly.
9:25 -I have abandoned plans for grammar and the children are now writing persuasive pieces about Why We Should Use Renewable Energy.
The saga continued after lunch when we continued our WW2 topic work, learning about the holocaust.
1:35 – we are discussing Kristalnacht. The class are collectively outraged and appalled. One is in tears.
1:40 – “Miss, I fucking hate Hitler.” that’s okay, but please express your hatred of fascism without the F word or I’ll have to ring your Mum again.
2:00 – small child who suggested murder earlier says “isn’t this exactly what Drumpf tried to do to the Muslims?” There’s a heady mix of realisation and outrage in the room.
2:13 – “Racism makes no sense” says a child, looking quite confused.
2:33 – “Hitler would have killed me because I’ve got cerebral palsy, right?” says a boy. He is tackle-hugged by a girl from across the table. I have to pretend I’m not crying.
2:34 – The rest of his table have made a pact to never let anyone hurt him. I am still pretending to be super chill. I am obviously failing as another child offers me a hug.
2:37 – I ask the children to look at nine examples of things the nazis did against Jewish people, and then arrange them in a diamond with what they consider the worst at the top.
2:38 – Mutiny. They all collectively decide to arrange all nine cards in a line and say that they’re all awful things so they all go at the top.
2:39 – I tell them if they kind find a way to fit a line of all nine in their books then fair enough. Smart child suggests a circle. Everyone cheers. We have a break, and they go outside raging about Hitler, Drumpf, racism, prejudice and injustice in general. I am handed a very strong tea by my TA who congratulates me on my gang of angry eleven year olds.
Faith in humanity both challenged and restored. Bring on tomorrow.
Do you know how many dogs I’ve met that get scared or anxious around men because in their previous home men hit them? A lot, and they are very protective of the women who have adopted them now.
Men who are violent towards women are often violent towards animals as well. They think we’re all chattel. If a man wants you to choose between your dog or cat or him, dump the guy. Those animals will love you for the rest of your life, loyal and true.
Actually, I have something to add.
The other day I saw a story where a woman was asking why her dogs had suddenly started growling at her boyfriend whenever he was in the same room as her son.
And my immediate thought was ‘that boyfriend has hurt the kid somehow.’
Spoilers: that was exactly the case.
Trust ur dogs when they say something is off.
The first time my sister came to visit, via plane, after I got my dog, pupper growled at her and wouldn’t go near her for the first day. Next visit was by car (two day drive)and pupper LOVED my sister. They snuggled and played and none of us could figure out why the change. We thought maybe the scent of my sisters cat had lingered on her clothes, making that first visit a rough one. Whereas when she came by car, the scent had had time to wear off. Well that was partially true…
Fast forward about six months when I went north to visit my family. My sister walked into my parents’ house and pupper ran to greet my sister. Stopped dead in her tracks and started growling and barking. Hackles raised, full protection mode. My sisters husband had just walked in behind her.
My precious puppy wanted NOTHING to do with him. She barked, growled, ran away, and sat between him and my sister. Y’all my dog had spent maybe a weekend a half around my sister but protected her like this was her flesh and blood.
Eventually, my sister filed for divorce on grounds of “Extreme and repeated mental, emotional, and sexual abuse.” Divorce was final in less than a month because her claims were substantiated.
Trust the dog, honey. They KNOW.
I’ve never owned dogs, but I used to work with horses (which are a lot like big dogs).
There was this one horse I worked with named Tonto. He was a doll. He followed me like a puppy, snuck treats out of my pocket, he was the sweetest thing. We were practically inseparable.
A guy I was considering dating came to visit me one day, and Tonto wanted NOTHING to do with him. Normally well behaved, he shoved himself between us and would NOT let this guy near me. He was stomping, acting really aggressive, and tried to bite the guy. This horse was practically dragging me back toward the barn. At that moment, despite being like, 17, I knew something was up, and ultimately things didn’t pan out for guy and me.
A year later I found out he had lied about his age (he said he was 18 but he was actually 27) he was arrested for sexually assaulting an 11 year old girl.
you should have offered them four 12×12 squares and a bottle of glue
As hilarious as that is…
… we’re out of glue.
Completely out of glue. The glue slime trend that has swept the middle schools in our area has maxed out all outlets of glue from December 18th to today’s date- February 6th. We keep getting shipments of glue, but they only come in 20-bottle boxes and they are completely gone by the time the weekend is out. Children are buying them by the armful.
And I would find this cute and honestly amazing that these kiddos are getting their first taste of entrepreneurship (mine was in high school, where I made novelty school ID’s) if it weren’t for the involvement of the parents.
Because the kids are like ‘aw, you don’t have any? Ok. We’ll try somewhere else- thank you! Where’s your glitter?’
The parents… oh gods the parents.
Calling us up at 9am- “What do you MEAN you don’t have any glue!? ITS A BASIC CRAFT ITEM! YOU HAVE TO HAVE GLUE!”
“You’re telling me that you DON’T CARRY GLUE?”
“I’m calling your corporate office to tell them just how wholly unprepared you all are because this is the fourth store I’ve called and NONE of you have any glue.”
“Can I pre-order? What do you MEAN I have to order from the website?”
“When will you be getting more? You don’t KNOW! HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW!? Two weeks at the EARLIEST!?”
“Can you call me when you get some? YOU CAN’T EVEN CALL ME WHEN YOU GET IT IN?”
I once caught one of our framers taking a call like these and I saw her re-inact Winona Ryder’s entire range of facial expressions a la SAG awards, eventually ending in her left eye going slightly wall when the angry parent finally hung up.
And there are some that call every single day, asking the same questions and hoping that they’ll get a different answer. But no. I’m sorry. The Glue Fairy didn’t make a surprise visit last night. We did not plant the glue seeds in time for the harvest and now there is a glue famine. The small child that we sent to fetch more glue has been captured by witches- who are now intent on raising her as their own and we wish them luck.
One day, my brother will have children and they will ask me about the Glue Famine of 2017 and I will recall a very specific instance wherein I could feel flecks of spittle coming through the end of the phone.
One day I shall die and a team of necromancers will raise me from my crumbling sarcophagus and the very first words from my revived, husk of a maw will be ‘WE ARE STILL OUT OF GLUE, CRETINOUS FILTH!’
And this is how I knew that 2017 was going to be a bad year. Retail-mancy: I divine the fall of our nation by the fact that we are perpetually out of basic adhesives. And its not the children that buy them that make it a problem, but the parents who imagine that we somehow have control over the entire damn glue industry.
Why you want to yell at me for telling you the truth is beyond me when you could be putting all that energy towards not sucking. GIT GUD.
I just learned today that tomorrow our store will be hopping on the glue slime trend and making an end cap to make easy access to our stock of glues, glitters, and I suppose we might be adding borax to our inventory.
Need I remind you that this is what our glue stock has looked like for the past two months:
We just got some in two days ago and its already gone.
So you have to imagine the position we’re in here- where we’re advertising glue that does not exist for more than three days every two to four weeks because of these tots are hell-bent on selling slime to their sandbox buddies.
We’re not selling glue. We’re selling the concept of glue. We are selling the desire for glue. We are inspiring others to covet the glue we do not have. The glue is unknowable. It is invisible, intangible, ineffable. One day the glue uprising shall be upon us, and none shall speak its name.
So like just in case you didn’t get the message-
We are out of glue.
Glue we are out of.
Out of glue we are.
We glue of are out.
Because the dozen or so rows where we used to stock our glue is now a gaping cavity of woe, our heathen customers have decided that this is the perfect space to lazily put things that they just suddenly decide they don’t want anymore. And for some ridiculous reason, the most popular thing to leave where an associate can find it is fake flowers.
Not even the first time this has happened, people. People are attempting to build a memorial to the glue that was, and will never be again. The time of glue has passed, we shall remember it fondly. Ashes to ashes, goop to goop.
Rest in Particulate, Glue Aisle.
Its about to get…
…significantly worse.
I’ve had several people contact me about an email that went out from our company, advertising Glue Slime and giving out a recipe (instead of borax, using baking soda and contact lens solution… I weep for our local optometrists). Luckily, we were sent a large ration of glue on Thursday in preparation for the endcap that we just put up.
And for a moment, the balance was restored. We could rebuild! There was enough glue to fill the dozen or so places in its home and have a good amount for the display. Sadly, we were only given a few bottles of clear glue- which is the one that people really want because…. clear slime. But things were looking better!
But little did we know…
… President’s Day was coming.
And the children… needed something to do…
Here is a photo of the display on Saturday morning.
And here it is on Monday morning:
They have ravaged our glue surplus to 1/10th. The glue that filled its home space is completely gone. I am honestly surprised that the meager 40 bottles we have left are still there, and by the time I finish writing this- they may not be.
Why would you do this to us, Mr President?
So while we have those 40 bottles, we can at least fend off the screaming parents, but I anticipate that a considerable amount of screaming will have already started by the time I start my shift this afternoon.
I shall scream as well.
I scream, they scream- we all scream into the yawning void of the glue section in hopes that the Elmer, God of Cheap Adhesives, will hear our cries and grant us the glue we so desperately yearn for. We shall be united in our despair.
We have reached a place in our glue stock where we are consistently keeping up with demand, more or less. We get it in on Wednesday, they all come in on the weekend and we’re out by Monday- giving people one day to bitch and moan because what would these people do if they weren’t allowed to scream at us for a whole thirty seconds?
Well, I came in to work on Wednesday and I found this at our customer service desk:
Look out world- we have the gallons!
People asked for the gallons of glue, they got the gallons of glue.
There were 20 of them on that endcap. I saw a woman buy three of them at once (and of course she wanted to use a coupon on each and every one of them because ‘gosh- who knew that glue would be so expensive!’ Like… lady- you’re getting this at 20 cents an ounce if you get it without a coupon. It’s not expensive, you’re just a cheapskate.)
By the end of Wednesday, they were all gone. We sold 20 gallons of glue in four hours. People were laying down $60 for glue. I could feel my Great Depression-raised grandpa shaking his head from…. I dunno, probably Purgatory.
Now the entire area knows that we have the glue gallons- the word has spread. But we don’t have them in stock and guess what emotions they have over it! If you guessed ‘anger’ then you’re right! So they do what they’ve always done when they need a literal gallon of glue and there are no gallons of glue to be had: they buy a ton of individual bottles.
But now knowing that there is an easier way to do this that is yet inaccessible to them fills them with ennui, and as they walk through the store their excitement over their hoard wanes and they put some of it back.
Now, any person of the retail-worker persuasion will tell you that a customer never puts an item back where they’re supposed to. That would be, frankly, preposterous. So instead, as they lose their grip on their desire for glue, they leave a single bottle where it is most convenient to them- a symbol of their defeat.
This is a fancy way of saying that I found a bottle of glue in every aisle one night because someone got pissy about not being able to buy it by the gallon and forgot to get a basket.
THE EPIC SAGA CONTINUES
how the fuck did we get from 12×12 squares of paper the the glue famine
I took my girlfriend to an improv show the other night and during intermission we were passionately arguing over whether half a 5 Hour Energy shot would give you 2.5 hours of energy or 5 hours of half-assed energy so we turned around to ask the opinions of the three people behind us and one of them said “Are all your arguments like this because we heard you in the lobby earlier fighting over the right way to pronounce ‘egg’?”
Steel Phoenix Studios 