Man, That Cookie Monster Can Dance in Dramedy

Well, I’m re-entering the blogging world it would appear…

What have I been doing? Procreating it would appear–as I have another child since the last entry. I swear, I do more than NOT write in this blog and have children. Drinking wine and spitting ill rhymes when no one else can hear are both pretty high on my list as well…

Well…drinking wine, at least…

I took Bridget to see Sesame Street Live last week. I always swore I would never be the kind of parent that took my kids to one of those dopey shows…but I’ve discovered that all those things that I swore I would never do–use a harness, use time outs, have a 2nd child–have turned out to not suck in real life application. I saw on the website that tickets were $10-$30 and I thought, “$10, $10 is doable.” Till I looked at the seating chart….The $10 tickets were a football field away from the stage…I’m not even sure they faced the stage….and they were advertised as possibly being infected with contagious butt diseases and most definitely rabies. Plus, they were all on the inside of the row. I had a strategy–aisle seats!!! I thought this would allow Bridget the best chance of dancing with or at least fondling one of the characters. Ok, so I was bumped up to the $20 seats. Still doable. Till I saw the taxes and fees. By the time it was done, I could have BOUGHT one of those effing Muppets. Maybe not a popular one like Elmo…but a lesser Muppet character like Prairie Dawn or Don Music? Oh fo’ sho.

Still, all for the kid…so it’s all good.

We get to the venue. Sesame St hates parents. Let’s just get that out of the way. It was an overpriced merchandise gauntlet to get to the doors to the theater. Bridget, of course, wanted EVERYTHING. Being that I had pretty much agreed to sell my youngest child to get the tickets–I had no extra money for merchandise. Bridget suddenly became unable to hear the word “No.” She is flopping all over the floor and screaming like I just told her that I have to cut her leg off…or that she can never watch Frozen again. Parents are quietly judging me, as they fork over $50 for an Elmo CD to torture them for many a car ride to come. I am trying to pick her up off the floor while pretending that, heh heh, this is all part of the fun…I just love my poverty & my behavioral, bratty kid! They’re BOTH my fave because I can’t pick one I love more…This isn’t Sophie’s Choice, folks. Heh, heh.

We finally get into the theater. Luckily there was a nice family behind us for me to commiserate with…This other mom and I both pretended like we were Too Cool for School…or, rather, Too Neat for The Street…but deep down we both knew, we weren’t and it filled us with self-loathing. While waiting for the show to start, the characters start giving instruction. Just what I want. Cookie Monster telling me how to evacuate in the event of an emergency, “Me think you screwed if fire happen…Me go up in flames cuz me can’t see to run! Me like monk in Tibet!” Ok, so that’s not how it goes…but it might as well have. I’m sorry–but furry characters who haven’t mastered grammar of the English language or chewing with their mouth closed are not the people I want in a position of authority in the event of an emergency.

Thennnn….the show started.

B was excited by the for the first, oh, 2 minutes…Then her dancing devolved into crawling around in the aisle on her belly like a reptile. So glad I paid $60 for her to do something that she does for free in the aisles at Wal-Mart. I thought, “Well maybe she’ll re-focus when the characters come off the stage.” But waaaaaaait, in looking for the aisle seats, they still ended up being too far back. Either the characters got mobbed before they got halfway back or they were just really freaking lazy and not all about the cardio it would take to get to us. The mom behind me and I kept trying to politely wait for our kids to get a chance to see the characters–but quickly realized that this was not a realistic expectation. (We also falsely believe that if they could JUST get up to those characters that they would CARE about the show and stop rolling around in the aisles like a bunch of grubs. Bullshit, all bullshit.) We were too timid to push our way up with our kids–and soon started to get pissed at all the pushy grandmas that had no problem taking out a toddler or two in their quest to get their grandkids up to the Muppet Groping Zone. F this, man. Finally, I told the other mother, “I’m going in…and I’m throwing elbows. Granny better hold onto her false teeth.” I made it all the way up and the closest I could get was to a Honker. A HONKER. A Honker is barely a Sesame St character, really. They’re the pregnant teenage cousin of the Sesame St family. STILL–I was there…the Honker was raising his hand towards Bridget. Ahhhh! Choir of fuzzy Jim Henson angels singing…PBS Programming Nirvana! And Bridget? Well she was so terrified by our descent towards the stupid non-character that she was too terrified to give him a high five. NO. We didn’t come all this way, push all these kids and grandmothers aside, for no one to high five this fuzzy bastard…So guess what? This bitch here gave him a high-five. I realized my mistake as soon as I touched his hand. First off, his fur was all matted and greasy from touching children. Ok, gag….Worse yet, I looked like I had pushed a bunch of children out of the way so that I, a grown adult, could high five a Honker!

I retreated in shame to our seats…and slunk down in my seat. The mom behind me was bemoaning that she was pretty sure she had accidentally kicked someone on her way towards the character…for her daughter who also couldn’t have cared less about our Noble Quest for Childhood Memories. We didn’t realize things were about to get worse…Cookie Monster came out and boogied hard. I looked at her through my fingers. “What?” “You know you’ve hit a new low when you realize Cookie Monster has better dance moves than you.” I mean you expect it from maybe Bert or Ernie. They seem like they’ve probably taken a few ballroom dancing classes together. Or even Abby Cadabby. She’s a fairy. But to be outdanced by Cookie Monster? A creature whose only claim to fame is his ability to cram cookies in his open pie hole and shower everyone with crumbs? Unfair. She agreed…claiming that her moneymaker now even accepted IOUs, business was that bad.

Finally, the show ended. Bridget didn’t even notice the sudden dearth of dancing, urbanite monsters in her life. She merely picked herself up off the floor when the lights came on and came over to put her coat on and said, “Mom, I’m ready to go home.”

Sheepishly, the mom behind me and I waved goodbye to each other, a little embarrassed by our behavior & by the depths we had sunk to. I brought Bridget home and, all danced out, she fell asleep on the couch. I’d like to think that I heard her murmur, “My mom’s the best…” as she drifted off to sleep…but in all likelihood it was probably closer to, “Man, that Cookie Monster can daaaance…”

From the archives…written in 2016

Last updated January 27, 2024