Friday 27 January 2012

I Am Superman

When I was a kid I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books, specifically the editions written in the mid-1980s.*  The best Choose Your Own Adventure book, in my 8 year old opinion, was Vampire Express.**

Here's a Choose Your Own Adventure decision for you:

You wake up, on your back, groggy inside a giant wooden cage.  You look around to try and find a way out, but realize that you are barely able to move.  It appears that your limbs have been tied to your body in some sort of brightly coloured cocoon.   Your stomach growls with an insatiable hunger.  You debate screaming for help, but decide that you will try to escape this horrible trap. You wiggle your body until you are able to get your arms free.  You press your elbow into the soft floor below you and slowly roll yourself onto your stomach.  You are now unable to move and your limbs are stuck in the bars of the cage.  You:
A - Keep yourself company with a song while you figure out your next move.
B - Panic and cry for help.  Surely someone will rescue you.

If you chose A, You are Molly - And when one of the two giants come in to see you, you will proudly smile about how you were able to roll onto your stomach.  If you chose B, you are Jack and you will need to be cuddled and comforted by said Giant(s) for at least ten minutes to calm you down from your horrifying adventure.  Either way you chose, you crapped your pants.

The minions have been rolling in both their sleep and their play constantly this week and their different reactions to things is amazing and amusing.  Being a baby has to be both exciting and terrifying.  It would be as strange as if you woke up tomorrow and the entire world was upside-down and then when you finally got used to that horror you developed the capability to fly but have no way to control how and when you are airborne.  The entire time you are going through these life altering experiences no one understands a word you say. Molly has two distinct screams - one for happy and one for angriest girl in the world.  Jack yells AGEEEEEEE whenever he's hungry, lonely or gassy and makes giant raspberries when he's happy.  These are caveman cries at best and even though both babies are convinced we can understand their incoherent babbling perfectly, I still have a better level of communication with my 13 year old cat Pan.

I can't even imagine how frustrating, but cool being a baby is.  You learn new things all of the time - that's what you do.  I know in my rants I'm rarely complimentary about Molly*** but as an adult I really hope that the next time I get my arms caught in a giant cage I stop and proudly sing a song.


*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Choose_Your_Own_Adventure_books
**That's right I liked vampires back in the Count Chocula, The Count days...before sugar was bad and The Count had OCD,  before Vampire Lestat or Edward Cullen.
***Sorry Molly, you scream A LOT, but you are truly wonderful.  I swear.

2 comments:

  1. I prefered text based adventures: "Look room" - "You are in a room with a door and a key" "Look key" "it is a gold key" "get key" "I do not understand" "Take key" "You take the key"

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    Replies
    1. It's like Leisure Suit Larry all over again.

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