Premeditated Corn Nabbing

I swear I really do try my best to not judge strangers. I don't know their stories, so it's best if I just assume the best and move on with my own business. But sometimes things crawl under my skin and make me go WHY, PEOPLE, WHY?

(Please tell me you're the same way.)

That thing happened this past weekend. We met some friends at the pumpkin patch for an afternoon of crazy fun. Crazy fun was had.

In the midst of all that crazy fun, there was a corn maze. A big corn maze. All of us adults went through that corn maze with the kids once, but when the kids decided they wanted to do it again, we looked at each other, said, "OH, HELL NO" and declared our kids big enough to fend for themselves.

Some rules were established and blah, blah, blah. We sent them in by themselves. If you're at all familiar with Trax's corn maze, you know that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do with kids who are that big. They can't exactly get off of the hill without help, and we knew they were trapped in the maze.

So, we stood at the exit. We stood there and stood there and we waited for the pokey trio to find their way back out of the maze.

While we were waiting, we people watched. A woman in heels and very perfect hair stumbled out of the maze.

She's not the one I judged.

A young SUPER adorable couple walked out holding hands and smiling.

I totally judged them. I judged them adorable.

Then this really big group came out of the maze. There were maybe eight of them together, some kids and some adults. AND I TOTALLY JUDGED THEM.

Because they were holding corn. Lots and lots of corn. As in, they all had armfuls of corn. So much corn that they were dropping it, but that was OK because they had big Ziploc baggies that they were putting it in.

In other words, they were performing premeditated corn nabbing.

WHY? Seriously ... WHY?

I couldn't figure it out. Why would you go to a corn maze armed with Ziploc bags and then grab every single ear of corn that you could find? Isn't that sort of ruining the corn maze for the rest of the people who have yet to go through?

I couldn't figure it out. Nor could I figure out why it bothered me. Sometimes things that shouldn't really be annoying are, so whatever. I was annoyed.

As I voiced my weird annoyance out loud, the pokey trio showed up. They stumbled their way out of the corn maze ... and each and every one of them was holding a bunch of ears of corn.

D'OH.

At least it wasn't premeditated, I guess.

Some People's Children Have Terrible Taste

It has been YEARS since I first renamed Dora the Explorer "Dora the Latina Whore." It's a really fitting name for her, especially given her penchant for plastering her face all over every imaginable thing. Her football-shaped noggin was on clothes and diapers, toys and underwear, plates and, well ... everything when Alexis was a toddler.

Dora's face was everywhere because there wasn't much Dora wouldn't do for a buck or two.

And Alexis loved her. Every annoying little thing about her, Alexis found irresistible. She used to stand in front of the TV yelling right along with that stupid Latina Whore. "MAP!" When we went to stores, Alexis begged for every imaginable piece of Dora merchandise.

It made me insane.

I never could stand the Latina Whore, and there wasn't anything that could make her tolerable.

By the time Alexis was three, there was a decent collection of Latina Whore merchandise in our house. It accumulated like some sort of communicable disease because 1. Alexis was really very determined that the only things she wanted were the Dora things. 2. Alexis was really very determined that the only things she wanted were the Dora things.

So. That.

I used to try to bribe the kid into picking ANYTHING that wasn't Dora. "I'll buy you two toys if you get two toys that don't have Dora on them," I would tell her.

It didn't work.

Cash also didn't work.

Alexis didn't care. She wanted Dora and that was all there was to it.

The thing about her determination was that it made me all the more vocal with my thoughts. Even when Alexis was two years old, she knew I didn't like Dora. Alexis knew she was allowed to like Dora, but that I didn't. At all. Not even a little bit.

In every way, it was the beginning of Alexis learning that it was OK for us to not agree. She likes what she likes and I like what I like. I love her even if she does have really bad taste in television shows, toys, music, sparkle levels and pretty much everything under the sun.

Alexis and I are very different people, and she knows that's OK. I think maybe I have Dora to thank for that.

Ron Burgundy is Not Her Favorite

It's very rare that I actually notice what is on the TV. It can be on and I can be sitting on the couch, but I am completely oblivious to what is happening ten feet away because INTERNET. It is shiny and fun and holds my attention way better than any actress or athlete or whatever.

Sometimes I hear the TV, but I very rarely actually NOTICE it.

That's how it happened that I had no idea that there were some Ron Burgundy commercials running for a particular car brand that shall remain unnamed and the reason for that will make sense in like a month.

ANYWAY.

I had no idea.

Alexis, on the other hand, notices everything and will happily stare at the black box for hours on end. She has entire episodes of Dog with a Blog memorized and can sing pretty much every commercial jingle ever. In fact, if any of you could talk Subway into burning the $5 footlong commercial with fire, I would appreciate it. That's the one that Alexis can sing only once, but will then end up stuck in my head for months on end.

We were watching the Penguins game when the Ron Burgundy commercial that I had never noticed aired. I still didn't notice it, but I performed a little DVR magic so I could see it because the moment it came on, Alexis started complaining.

"I hate this commercial sooooo much," she said. Hate is a really very strong word coming from her, so it caught my attention.

"It makes me want to walk up to that guy and punch his face," she continued.

So. SO. I actually caught myself saying that whole "punch his face" thing like two years ago and decided I needed to quit that crap around Alexis. I don't really want to perform an act of violence and just throwing it out like I was that day made it seem like I was trivializing something that I shouldn't. I have tried very hard not to threaten violence in any way around Alexis, even as a joke.

(I've been trying to stop doing it on the internet as well, so feel free to give me crap if you see me doing it. And, yes, I realize I just said I want to burn the Subway commercials with fire, which just goes to show how very much I loathe them. The commercials. They need to go up in smoke.)

ANYWAY. Those were some really very serious words coming from someone who knows that it's not ok to joke about violence.

But! Fortunately, Alexis caught herself and clarified her statement. "Well, not really. I don't really want to hit him," she said.

Good girl.

"But I really do want to walk up to him and ask him if he really thinks his behavior is acceptable because IT'S NOT, MOM."

I guess Alexis wouldn't really be interested in seeing Anchorman.