The Blue Dress
Jess just told me that she went to Target and there were Kleenex boxes with MALIFICENT on them!!!
(http://peacebang.blogspot.com/2005/09/god-i-hope-i-get-it.html)
For the briefest second I had this flare of tantrum energy where I just wanted to throw myself on the floor of my study and scream
I WANT ONE I WANT ONE I WANT ONE!! until I was out of breath and sobbing.
Because I went to Target yesterday --- yester-very-day, yes, ter-day -- and all I bought was excessively grown-up things like Murphy's Oil Soap and bleach and batteries and kitty litter and I did not buy myself even one little teeny tiny present, no , not even a Barbie lunchbox (I have a "Bewitched" one anyway). Not even one fun pair of socks, or even a throw pillow. We were all business.
I had the same tantrum-y feeling when I went to Disney World a few years ago and saw in the gift shop that they had perfect replicas of all the Disney heroine costumes that any little girl could buy if her parents had the cash for it, and if she wheedled hard enough. I mean, I would have killed a peer for one of those costumes when I was four years old. I actually held up the Snow White costume to my own body, just to have it against myself. "Doesn't this come in an 18?" Little PeaceBang sobbed inside me. She almost made me buy it anyway, but I knew there would be a terrible fight when I tried to give it away to any of my little goddess-daughters.
The whole thing reminds me of this one beautiful blue fairy princess dress we had in the Dress Up Trunk at my nursery school. I used to rush like a rabid demoniac from my car pool to the trunk to get it every morning, since whoever got the blue dress got to be Cinderella when we played make-pretend.
I had such a steady monopoly on that dress that it became a Serious Problem at the Robin Hill Nursery School. My little schoolmates never said anything to me about it but they complained to Miss Louisa and Miss Barbara, who gently inquired of me if I would like to share the blue dress. Being three years old and fairly literal-minded, I didn't get the hint. I responded honestly that I did not want to share the blue dress. They spoke to my mother about it and I got a comment on my report card about having having "issues with sharing."
In case you should think this an unjust persecution of a 4-year old, I must confess in all honesty that it was none but I who slammed the car door on Stacy Wainhouse the day that she and her rotten, curly-headed friend Rachel plotted and planned in the back seat how one of them was going to trip me while the other ran to get the blue dress.
I've always had preternaturally good hearing, and a strong right arm.
Note to parents, and those who work with pre-schoolers: don't ask them whether or not they want to be good, unselfish children. Tell them that they'd better be, or else. Children are savages, for God's sake. Stacy Wainhouse is lucky to be alive today, and you heard it here.
(http://peacebang.blogspot.com/2005/09/god-i-hope-i-get-it.html)
For the briefest second I had this flare of tantrum energy where I just wanted to throw myself on the floor of my study and scream
I WANT ONE I WANT ONE I WANT ONE!! until I was out of breath and sobbing.
Because I went to Target yesterday --- yester-very-day, yes, ter-day -- and all I bought was excessively grown-up things like Murphy's Oil Soap and bleach and batteries and kitty litter and I did not buy myself even one little teeny tiny present, no , not even a Barbie lunchbox (I have a "Bewitched" one anyway). Not even one fun pair of socks, or even a throw pillow. We were all business.
I had the same tantrum-y feeling when I went to Disney World a few years ago and saw in the gift shop that they had perfect replicas of all the Disney heroine costumes that any little girl could buy if her parents had the cash for it, and if she wheedled hard enough. I mean, I would have killed a peer for one of those costumes when I was four years old. I actually held up the Snow White costume to my own body, just to have it against myself. "Doesn't this come in an 18?" Little PeaceBang sobbed inside me. She almost made me buy it anyway, but I knew there would be a terrible fight when I tried to give it away to any of my little goddess-daughters.
The whole thing reminds me of this one beautiful blue fairy princess dress we had in the Dress Up Trunk at my nursery school. I used to rush like a rabid demoniac from my car pool to the trunk to get it every morning, since whoever got the blue dress got to be Cinderella when we played make-pretend.
I had such a steady monopoly on that dress that it became a Serious Problem at the Robin Hill Nursery School. My little schoolmates never said anything to me about it but they complained to Miss Louisa and Miss Barbara, who gently inquired of me if I would like to share the blue dress. Being three years old and fairly literal-minded, I didn't get the hint. I responded honestly that I did not want to share the blue dress. They spoke to my mother about it and I got a comment on my report card about having having "issues with sharing."
In case you should think this an unjust persecution of a 4-year old, I must confess in all honesty that it was none but I who slammed the car door on Stacy Wainhouse the day that she and her rotten, curly-headed friend Rachel plotted and planned in the back seat how one of them was going to trip me while the other ran to get the blue dress.
I've always had preternaturally good hearing, and a strong right arm.
Note to parents, and those who work with pre-schoolers: don't ask them whether or not they want to be good, unselfish children. Tell them that they'd better be, or else. Children are savages, for God's sake. Stacy Wainhouse is lucky to be alive today, and you heard it here.
posted by PeaceBang at 6:30 PM
7 Comments:
Wow. Should I get an extra and mail it to you? ;-)
I got it for John's office at his internship church, 'cause I thought it added a little bit of "the wife was here" kinda presence. They had Cap'n Hook, too.
No, no... I'm fine. Really.
Good Grief, you deserve a tissue box go get one! Hell, go get two. They are better than a silly costume that isn't even the REAL thing and costs a gazillion Disney Dollars.
But Denise! I forgot to tell you that the nearest Target is a half-hour away, so I only go there once every season like Pa used to hitch up the wagon and go into town every spring and winter on "Little House on the Prairie" to get salt pork and white sugar and a bolt of calico for Ma's new dress!
I'm just not going to hitch up the wagon for a box of Malificent tissues. I will be strong.
A half hour away and you won't drive it for a Kleenex box THAT GOOD? I don't think you really want it all that badly. I think you just like throwing the hissy fit to get some attention. ;-)
A half hour is nothing when you're talking Target. Put in your Disney Princesses Sing A Long and make a day of it!
Let's be fair. That's a half an hour in MA time, which, at least when I was five, felt like a good hour and twenty minutes. Now, if that was half an hour Chicago time, I'd be driving out to the Target every day, 'cause everything in Chicago is normally exactly forty-five minutes away from everything else. No matter where you're going. All the time. Half an hour would feel like some sort of nirvana.
I love Chicago so much. I used to drive all over the place to go do shows, and it never felt like a big deal. But then I was younger then, and could wake up at 5:30 a.m., teach in a horrid environment all day, come home and grade papers and plan classes, go to rehearsal and stay out until 1:00 afterward.
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