The Mind of a Child

Some things are just easy to complain about.

There are some things that nearly everyone has had a bad experience with, like slow internet, telemarketers, or Adam Sandler. Another one of those things is very young children.

People are always complaining about kids. If I only had reports of kids to go on, I would probably believe that everyone under the age of nine was a murderous elf. Common complaints include “They’re selfish,” “They’re dumb,” and “They’re murderous elves,” and even though  these things can occasionally be true, people tend to forget how fabulous kids can be.

As grown-ups, jokes have to be “funny” to be laughed at, activities can’t involve imaginary pirates or time travel, and not all drama can be handled with bubbles (thankfully, some drama can still be handled with bubbles, if you just so happen to carry them with you everywhere you go). If you ask me, this greatly limits human interaction.

A four-year-old with whom I was playing house decided that our characters in the game should watch TV. Not allowed to watch any more real TV that day, we set up a fake one and sat down in front of it to stare for about ten minutes. I let him know I was changing the channel to Doctor Who, and then pointed and laughed. “What? What happened?” he asked. I told him that the Doctor had said, “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey… stuff.” He laughed for longer than I did the first time I heard it (that’s a long time).

I’m still not sure if he was being polite or if he genuinely found the words “wibbly wobbly” hilarious, but either way, he was a very good sport.

At my last choir practice, one of the guitar players brought his daughter, so he give his eight-year-old an iPad to entertain herself. After playing with it for about two minutes, she put it down and played the bongos instead. I applaud you, Guitar Dad. You raised a daughter that will put an iPad down without being commanded to.

These instances restored my faith in the next generation. However, while I’m stressing how under-appreciated the minds of children are, I should also probably mention their dark side.

As easy as it is to forget how wonderful a child’s imagination is, we really mustn’t forget how diabolical they can be as well. I mean, think about it. Who’s the scariest person in nearly every horror movie? I’ll give you a hint – it’s no one taller than four feet.

One terrifying instance I recently experienced was while I was helping babysit a class of nine kids. One six-year-old in particular is the rowdiest, and we’ll call him Carson. All of the other children were eating their snack while he stood in the middle of the room spinning in circles, swinging something invisible around. It soon became obvious that it was a weapon. A sword. Two of them, it appeared.

Carson thrust the invisible weapons in a V formation into the air directly in front of him, tensed, struggled, and then threw his arms out to the side with a grunt of effort. My eyes widened in horror. This was one of the occasions where I’m not very proud of my imagination. In that moment, I didn’t see a kid playing pretend. I saw a six-year-old cutting a grown man in half. I saw blood everywhere, and a delighted six year old in my care standing over a dead body.

I was babysitting an early-years version of Deadpool.

This explanation makes way more sense than it should.

A few weeks later, another kid in the class, five or four, was coloring a sheet of a happy boy and girl under an arch of words about God’s love. Little Jonah, smiling, selected a black marker, and proceeded to color both illustrated children head to toe with darkness. “They’re melting!” he told me. “His face is melting, and his eyes are melting, and his brain is melting…” he adopted a high-pitched voice, “Help, I’m meltiiiing!”

Cue the nervous laughter as I slowly back into a corner.

If you take anything away from this post, take this: next time you want to complain about kids, remember – not only are they more wonderful than you are giving them credit for, but they could also plan your untimely demise and  they would probably get away with it.

That is all.

Now run along and play nice with the others.

Under the Influence

It’s really interesting, isn’t it, the way you become what you like?

I didn’t wear my peacoat nearly as much before I started watching Sherlock, and I certainly never left my collar up. Ever since White Collar, whenever I put on a hat, I try to spin it like Neal Caffrey and end up looking like I never quite mastered fine motor skills. My hair has been in milkmaid braids more times than I’d care to admit since I began to watch the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and my nails are long and painted red right now. Not because they match my outfit, mind you. Because this.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that if you understood every reference I just made, I owe you a firm handshake and a root beer float.

There are some entertainment-induced tendencies I don’t pick up that I wish I would (mad archery skills, River Song’s hair, etc. ) and tendencies I do pick up that I wish I wouldn’t (spontaneous British accent at inappropriate times, and I recently used “totes,” in a conversation).

Pre-Nerd me would probably think I was some sort of lunatic if she could see me now. Though, to be perfectly honest, it would not (did not)  take long to convert her to the nerd side.

But how far is this going to go? I don’t want to wake up in a year and find that nothing I do or say or believe is in any way my own. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

The media tries really hard to remake people and tell them what to think. From beauty, to love, to infinity and beyond. I don’t even like people close to me to make big decisions for me. Why would I ever want the media to make them for me? I have to remind myself that although I may find that my emotions are often at the mercies of Joss Whedon, neither he nor his characters may touch me, my soul. That belongs to Someone Else, and I am its caretaker. I will not be, I am not one of the media’s puppets, and no matter how much it seems otherwise, I am not controlled by Steven Moffat. … I say this mainly because I assume that if I were, I’d most likely be dead by now (Pass up an opportunity to write something passive-aggressive about everyone’s favorite/most hated human being? Not this girl!).

Thanks for letting me rant. Every now and then, I get the urge to assert my free will. Thankfully, even after being the girl who had to replay the last few seconds of Lizzie Bennet Diaries #97 several times just to listen to three [beautiful] words over and over, I like to imagine that I have some aspects of my life at least kind of in control. That’s all anyone in this messed-up world can ask, right?

Perfectly sane, logical young woman – out.

And now that she’s gone, I really need to get something off my chest. Is it just me, or should no show ever be allowed to have as much backstory as Once Upon a Time has? Or as many new characters per episode? That show is turning me into a stark raving madwoman, please send help.

Okay, that’s really all now.

Have a spectacular day, friends!

Stuff I Have a Problem With

Stuff is giving me problems, and you know what? Stuff can’t be allowed to keep going around and making people miserable! It’s time to stand up to stuff and let stuff know that this isn’t okay.

This is the stuff that drives me mad.

1. The Pit of Ignorance. Sometimes known as “the comments section on youtube.” Now first, I would like to say that some people post witty and well-worded comments on youtube, and good for them! But I think we’re all more acquainted with those comments that make you consider resigning humanity to become a hedgehog. For instance, while browsing comments on a couple of videos, I found these displays of intellectual prowess:

• “i found it a bit weired”
• “i the vid with the dribbling and oop to himself better.”
• “comment ok happy”
• “IronMan is a boring Superhero”

Can you believe that fourth one? It’s disgusting the people that are allowed on the internet.

Now, I understand that good spelling and grammar do not come easily to everyone who attempts them (or doesn’t attempt them), but for a few years now, we’ve had this magical gadget called spell-check. And it is not only awesome, it is sadly under-utilized.

2. The Impromptu Two-Person Harlem Shake. In case you have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks (and/or not been on the internet), the Harlem Shake is a two-shot, thirty-second video of people dancing like sick giraffes. It’s awesome. But the afore-mentioned “impromptu two-person harlem shake” is not nearly as magical.

Picture this. You are walking down the middle of a hallway when you notice someone walking towards you. To avoid a head-on collision, you veer left. Motivated by the same intentions, they veer right and accidentally block you. Muttering apologies, you go right to let them pass. Simultaneously, they decide to go left. You begin to twitch in sync with your new dance partner. Your temper rises. The situation, no, your LIFE is no longer within your control.

You’re done for. You’ve been trapped in the ghastly loop of  the two-person Harlem Shake.

To be avoided at all costs.

3. The Rules of Acceptable Social Conduct. I suppose in some ways, this is actually a good institution, but some things about it are just silly. Have you  noticed how the rules change as you and people around you grow older? These tiresome rules have prevented me several times from putting people (people I don’t babysit) in time-outs, it’s not always okay to draw with chalk in public places, and apparently, it isn’t normal to fix problems with bubbles anymore after you’ve passed year thirteen.

Problems that can be fixed with bubbles when you’re 3-11 years old:

• Boredom
• Pain
• Bullies
• World hunger

Problems that can be fixed with bubbles when you’re 12+ years old:

• Kids 

4. Patience. Okay, so patience is a good thing. It’s a virtue! It’s a fruit of the spirit! But if you tell that to any Sherlockian, Whovian, or Seahorse (and no, I’m not referring to marine animals), they will slap you so hard that you will fall back in time to before it was cool to like things before they were cool. Waiting, however wonderful it may be for your character, is hard. 

5. Homework. Otherwise known as “That thing I’m avoiding right now.”

… I should go.

If this stuff makes you cringe too, then know you’re not alone.

Stuff makes us all equally miserable.