Moosical Interlude

Last night, my son was in a little musical theatrical production. He and the rest of his kindergarten ilk gathered together on a series of risers and belted out some barnyard-themed songs. Some children were selected to recite bad--but kitschy--poetry. It tore at the heart.

I'd post some pictures, but I can't. They're all ruined.

I stood at the back of the gymnasium/auditorium, because I'm tall...and also because I got there late-ish. As the wee ones came trooping into the gym for the show, the ten rows of people seated in front of me did what any group of parents and grandparents of kindergarten-aged children do when their spawn are involved in a public presentation:

They made asses of themselves.

See, I tried to snap a few digital pictures of my proud and handsome lad there on the third riser with my 2 megapixel camera. Instead of getting his shining, smiling, beaming face, I got someone's bald spot. I also got a picture of a fabulously bad dye job that looked more like a dead animal perched precariously atop someone's skull and less like hair. Although, I guess some dead animals have hair, too. This looked like and albino raccoon had been rolling in molasses. So chique. I also got what I can only assume is a Bubba-Gump shrimpin' hat...not really, but it was a baseball cap wedged right into the space between the aperture of my camera and where my son stood. Because, you know, it would have been too much to ask for you to fucking duck while you're wandering around the back of the assembly where people are trying to take pictures.

It's a hat. Probably not Bubba-Gump. I just wanted to keep with the theme this week. It is, after all, "Can't Get Enough Gumpweek".

My personal favorite catch with the camera? The flabby arms of a portly mother waving to get her urchin's attention. As I snapped it, she uncannily put the three foot wide swath of flesh and cellulite into the space containing my son's face. The blurred image can only really be described as a cross between a walrus' flipper and a stack of donuts.

God, I love school assemblies.

Fortunately, God loves me back and thus he struck my batteries low on power (again), so I had to put the camera away. As the children were singing about pigs and goats and cows fucking or something, my attention waned. So, I did what any man would do in my situation:

I began counting MILFs.

I got to seven...starting with my wife, of course! *shifty-eyed*

I broke off my count when I started picking up on a disturbing trend. There's a lot of people who have procreated and sent their progeny to my children's school who have a smiling problem. Now, this isn't to say that smiling is a bad thing. It can brighten your day or lure a kitten into your clutches long enough to punt it. This is something completely different.

When the smiling is the person's default idle face, that's when it becomes a problem. Like, they're just motoring along, not really interacting with anyone, just passing through the crowd and this big, lurid, evil grin is drawn across their faces. It wasn't just one particular group, either: men, women, old, middle-aged, young...everyone was afflicted. And it was unsettling. Mostly because if you have a face that's built so that, at rest, it's still smiling, then you don't look natural. With these big, wide, googly eyes and a pained rictus drawing your lips back over your teeth, you look somewhere between "driving a black van allegedly filled with candy" and "why so serious?"

And when you get a dozen of these jokers (heh) wandering around in a confined space...things begin to get a little creepy. Seriously people, stop it. Stop giving me dopey, freaky nightmares about what you do with ponies and cabbage patch dolls. I don't want to think about it.

The performance? Oh, it was nice. A good distraction from the Arkham refugees that were littering the fucking place. My son did a good job and I clapped. Apparently louder than anyone in the room. I got a lot of lights to shut off, I guess.

Hey, that old lady can't do it all by herself.

During one of the songs, a teacher put on a cow costume with a bright pink udder glued to it. As she was a...larger...woman, I have to say, she's got some serious cajones. I applauded her loudly, too, because clearly, this was a woman who was comfortable with herself enough to strap an udder to her belly and shimmy and shake. It was nice to see that she wasn't so serious...