Having a Youtube Moment

First, a disclaimer: I don't watch Youtube.

I know what you're thinking: You lie.

No. I really don't. My computer still putts around on dial up, so unless I want to experience processing information in real time as if I have ADHD, I'm not going to link onto any video type material, no matter who sends it to me.

It's not that I've never seen Youtube. I've been at a friend's house and seen the One Semester of Spanish Spanish Love song --a great humor short if you've never seen it. I've driven home my kids friends and heard about Chad Vader in the Grocery store, and about the puppet versions of Harry Potter singing about Severus Snape.

My main problem with Youtube is the absence of a filter to prevent personal public assassination of an individual in the name of showmanship, put downs, cruelty, smugness, immaturity and indifference to causing humiliation. That, and having dial up, I can't see any of it.

You're thinking...so switch to broadband, cable, wireless, there are ways.

But you see, I know myself well enough to remember, I yell at phone service people who are indifferent to my pain. Appliance man, this means you.

I have been known to roll down my car window when someone took the parking place reserved for new mothers and pregnant women. As the guy sprinted towards the Radio Shack, I yelled "That's Funny, You don't look pregnant!"

Caught at the wrong moment --say during dinner time, after I've been on hold for fifteen minutes, or when pressed and stressed, I can be, and I'm sorry if my mother is reading this, rude.

As Youtube becomes more ubiquitous than it already is, I predict an increase in the percentage of women dressing up and wearing professional type makeup, as daily footage of our everyday becomes more and more posted on the internet. Maybe I should start dying my hair or at least brushing it. If' I'm caught today on TV, Mom will be calling. "Why didn't you at least get a haircut before you went off?"

"I was at the hair dresser's."
"Well, put on some lipstick if you're going to talk like that. It's Clinique bonus time, go in and get a pack."

The reason for all of this, is that in our area, a woman lost her temper and made an ill advised return phone call to a high school senior that had called her home to nag about a snow day. Her husband was/is superintendant of Fairfax schools. That rant in its ugly entirety has even been run on CNN.

While public humiliation is not exactly the modern day equivalent of feeding the Christians to the Lions, it is a public blood sport. People watch and participate in the feeding frenzy because it seems there's nothing wrong with a good public excoriation of another, as long as it appears that the person was deserving of such treatment. No one thinks they'd want to live in a society where scarlet letters are sewn on people's shirts, but having a trail of websites that reveal any and all past discrepancies and personal failures is pretty much the same thing.

What is never asked, is if that treatment was warranted, and that is because the answer would almost always be "No." And then if it were asked, People would shrug their shoulders and say "What can we do?"

We are going to have to as a society learn to manage our "God's Eye" viewpoint that can turn the most intimate and private of conversations into one of the most popularly downloaded clips of the day. We are going to have to remember that at any moment, we could be the one on candid camera, not just in syndication, but forever available, to us and our posterity. What we can do, is not watch. What we can do, is decide before we post, email, film or depict, would we want this done to us?

In the meantime, I'm going to buy some whitening toothpaste and some conditioner. If I'm going to be made infamous for my flaws, I want to look good for Mom.

P.S. and as if to punctuate this slightly serious post, I just discovered my daughter. Apparently, she tried on all the pull-ups to find the one she wanted while I was typing. There are thirteen discarded ones in the bathroom. On Youtube today...

Driving Ms. Daisy Godzilla, the Killer Blue Kitten

We drive a Suburban.

No big deal, I grew up driving a Suburban…sometimes with a boat attached. For those not familiar with the dynamics required to haul a 17 foot sailboat on a trailer plus a six foot metal mast extending beyond the hull, it is like your vehicle is an 18 wheeler, with only six wheels. You can still take out a house if you turn wrong, you just have less grip on the road.

There have been stories about other Suburbans where the trailer spontaneously disengaged from the Suburban and then, due to forces heretofore unknown, passed said hauling car on the freeway, even making a turn signal before switching lanes.
“Look Dad, there goes someone’s Boat…”
“Look at that…HEY! THAT’S OUR BOAT!”

Even without a boat, the only word for a Suburban is XXXL.

If it was a sandwich, it would be a Wendy’s Baconator. Why? Because four patties of beef, six slices of bacon and three of cheese is probably sufficient caloric intake for seventeen days. Filling up the tank of this big blue monstrosity on a regular basis requires that we manage our investments wisely. Like eating a baconator You don’t want to do it very often… if ever.

The point of all this is that recently, I have had difficulty parking this big blue Beast. It all started when my five year old daughter’s friend decided our car was called Blue Kitten. She had already named her parent’s red suburban Kitten, so it seemed only natural to christen ours a similar moniker.

My sons were outraged and sought to soothe the should be mucking about in the swamps, hauling boats, SUV’s ego by coming up with alternative names, like Bulldog, Mastodon, and of course Godzilla. Each name increased in it's testosterone level and descriptive violent adjectives.

The car had an identity crisis.

Suddenly, it was nearly impossible to park this machine. Every spot was too narrow, too difficult to steer into, impossible to exit. I took to parking at the far end of the parking lot, but even there, I struggled to get the car within the two yellow lines. I could have sworn it was gaining weight. Maybe it was stress guzzling the ethanol I’d been putting in when I wasn’t looking.

When the girls would pile in for gymnastics or basketball, suddenly the car became spry and nimble, deftly maneuvering around any number of tiny double parked vehicles to secure a sweet parking place. My girls had taken to patting the car, “Good Kitty Blue.”

“Blue Kitten!” “BULLDOG!”
“I like mine version better! The Blue Death Star!”
“MOMMMMM!”

Being called to issue a ruling on what the Suburban shall hence forth be named was an issue fraught with peril. The kids waited as I considered whether I’d ever get my eight year old son in the vehicle again willingly if I allowed the girly nick name to stand. At the same time, dismissing her friend’s gesture would crush my five year old’s spirit.

Reaching back into biblical lore, I consulted Solomon.

We started talking about all the names in our family. How Dad gets called “Mr.” at the office and I don’t get called Mom by my friends. They knew I was preparing to give a ruling.

The Suburban, being a big car, could handle a bigger name. I presented my Hybrid solution, Godzilla Kitten.

Both sides were disgusted.

Me: “Fine! Get in the Car!” Case dismissed.