Keep Calm, Move Along

The one thing one should ALWAYS keep in mind when flying to Orlando is to never, ever fly to Orlando. EVER.

Yes, our pilot was totally hot (no, I did not pull a Liz Lemon and stage a mutiny – but I was THIS close), and my exit row seat provided me three more glorious inches than usual, but the entire plane, the ENTIRE PLANE was full to the brim with prepubescent bundles of absolute terror all jumping in their seats in expectation for Disney World. I don’t think I have ever experienced as much hate towards Mickey Mouse as I did for those last four hours.

http://sirmitchell.tumblr.com/ - Check him, yo.

And you know what? I was totally fine with that. Peachy, in fact. They were strapped in – what possible harm, apart from a little seat-kicking, could they get up to? No, it was the parents I worried about. And I was right to worry. OH, was I right.

The entirety of our flight was narrated by a born-and-raised Rhode Island woman who punctuated her furious texting with an occasional gum smack and a running commentary of EVERYTHING that was happening out the window AT ALL times. After a particularly bumpy bout of turbulence, said woman literally repeated at LEAST once every five minutes that “it was like the ground fell out from under me,” to which I almost snarkily replied that it had, indeed, fallen out from under her upon take-off. Also, that amazingly the rest of had us felt the same thing she did, and did not need her to re-remind us that we were traveling at high speeds in a small, enclosed container, in mid-air with HER.

Artistic rendition of this woman. And by artistic, I mean this is a picture of Snooki. Use your imagination.

Her main concern, apart from making sure we all knew the blow-by-blow of her titillating plane experience, was the lack of sunshine in Orlando needed to “get her tan on,” and regulating her young child’s music selection. This is how, after I had finally managed to get some sleep, I was lulled awake by the dulcet tones of “I’m a Slave 4 U” (spelling: Britney can has it?).

An approximation of my hair at this point in the story

Okay, guys, I admit – I love Britney as much as the next ‘90s child. Yet there is something that is fundamentally wrong to me about playing this music, sans headphones, on a four-hour plane full of children under the age of ten. I dunno, that’s just my opinion on the matter.

Another of my opinions got me in a little more trouble, as the plane was coasting to a stop and “I’m a Slave 4” My Tan STANDS UP while the plane is STILL MOVING, yanks her kid up, and is confused as to why the entire row in front of her, in unison, tell her to “SIT (the f***k) DOWN.” Not to be deterred, this woman has the nerve to bad-talk me as I grab my bag from the overhead compartment and get off in front of her, despite actually BEING in front of her. In fact, she attempts to pretend I have hit her child. 

Meth is like parenthood: it does things to people. Specifically, it does Steve Buscemi to people.

Lady, I am this close to hitting something else. Just try me.

Moral of the story? Avoid children on planes. Because, and you’ll know this if you’ve ever been to a kiddie soccer game, the higher the parent to square foot ratio is, the more inexplicably ridiculous the insanity becomes.You just gotta:

OHAI, I like Star Wars. OMFG Star Wars. ALL day ERRY day.

Star Destroyer? I Hardly Know Her!

There was a lot of judgmental badger face happening this weekend. Mostly on my face. Mostly due to the Star Wars Holiday Special. Caveat: you may not have heard of it. Because George Lucas attempted to find and destroy all remaining copies. It's that bad.

Badger, badger, badger, badger. MUSHROOM.

I’d like to compare the opening ten minutes of this atrocity to the first thirty minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, as they both involve large expanses of time in which large, furry mammals talk to each other sans subtitles, and I couldn’t really give a shit. The nice part about 2001 is that halfway through we get a break from the weird prehistoric trip. Star Wars Holiday Special? Not so kind.

I’m going to skip over most of it, as I choose to do of my middle school years, because it is honestly too awful for simple summary. All I am going to say are that the highlights include the musical talents (in descending order) of Jefferson Starship, Carrie Fischer and this crazy-ass lady:

Please appreciate that I got this from the website www.toplessrobot.com

It pains me to say it, but the best part of the whole thing was the animated sequence with Bobba Fett. He appears, fittingly, riding on top of a gigantic dinosaur. I’m going to let that mull over a little bit in your mind while I make jokes about how much coke Carrie Fischer and gang did in the ‘80s and how George Lucas’s body “Fett”  (yeah, I went there) has increased significantly after the passage of such a noble decade. Coincidence? I think not.

Also, observe this artistic rendition of Han Solo and just TRY to tell me there wasn’t something else going on there:

It disturbs me how happy they are with their tiny cartoon lives.

Crack is wack guys. That said, if they had gotten Whitney Houston to sing their original song, I don’t think they’d be in this mess in the first place.

I may have actually had a separate, unrelated discussion about the theoretical sign for carbonite this weekend, but I’m not a total Star Wars nerd, you guys, I promise.

To prove it, last night I also watched, in quick succession, Swan Princess, Land Before Time, AND Anastasia. Admittedly, that sounded much more impressive, and less immature in my head.

For a minute, put aside the fact that I have the maturity level of a thirteen year old boy of questionable sexuality. Believe me when I say that Land Before Time really does stand the test of time. I can definitely see why my mother was more positive toward me watching that movie over and over as opposed to my other cinematically genius choices (Princess Diaries, Fern Gully, Swan Princess II, etc.). Also, baby dinosaurs are far superior to baby humans. Uncontested fact.

Why was Robin Williams even in this movie?

In more serious, world news, here’s  a picture of an old Japanese man being rescued from Tsunami/Earth Shake (yeaaaah, Land Before Time jargon):

Rescue Efforts: Japan Does them Cuter

Donate to Japan if you ever want your iPad 2 to ship. And also if you generally consider yourself capable of empathy.

Baby Sitting

I know this makes me, in the words of Jack Donahue,  “negative, pessimistic, and in danger of becoming permanently sour,” but there’s something about Liz Lemon – and frankly, most people – that I honestly just don’t get. 

That’s right: babies. What the heck is up with babies?  They are terrifying creatures. Have you ever had someone pass a baby to you, as if there is some inherent female instinct that knows exactly how to hold a squirmy, drooling, incompetent tiny human? Because I think I accidentally slept through that lecture. Seriously, people? Would you turn on a chainsaw and then deftly hand it off to an innocent bystander? Okay, babies do not equal chainsaws, but still. NOT COOL.

Stop that.

I would post a picture of me uncomfortably holding a baby, but only one of those exists in all of human kind  (it also includes me uncomfortably dealing with my teens – hell-O braces) and has thankfully not been introduced to digital form yet. 

Here is a picture of me holding a cat. Because cats deal with their shit all by themselves.

Another thing that has always baffled me is the persistence of the myth that babies smell like lilies or some crap. Some crap is right. Babies smell terrible, even if baby power smells awesome. Sure, they smell great after a bath… but so do I, and I have hair and can carry on a conversation about 30 Rock with you. Not sure how those last two things were relevant, but just go with it.

You might be thinking, “But Megan, you too were once a child!” First of all, stop thinking as though you’re having a conversation with me, that’s totally weird. Secondly, even as a baby I liked adults better, proving my theory that the state of baby-dom is one of absolute wrongness.

I was recently having a conversation with a few girlfriends of mine about this very topic. We all went around the circle talking about our siblings and whether we wanted kids. The conversation went a little like this:

“I think I want two kids…”

“I definitely want four kids, I always wanted to have more siblings….”

“rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb….” (this conversation became less and less pertinent to my interests)

“Zero kids is too many kids” (that was me, can you tell?)

Until we got to this absolute gem, from my illustrious friend, Liz: “Shit guys, I just want a car…”

And then I realized. I needed to prioritize my life. Because cars are much more important than babies (why have a baby, if only to buy an annoying sticker for your minivan that says “Baby On Board”?). I need to stop hating on babies so much and start loving cars a lot more. Because babies don’t have built-in seat warmers.

Unless you sat on them.

Don’t do that. 

Thank god I will never have to worry about this.