Thursday, November 20, 2008

Spin Cycle: It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

Spin Cycle time. This week, favouritism, or your favourite post. This post is from July of 2007, only a month into my blogging career and around 700 posts ago (not an exaggeration, I have 704). I wouldn't say it's my favourite, but it was near the beginning and, honestly, I got tired of looking. And it's another example of me doing something stupid and that's always a crowd pleaser.




It all seemed like a good idea at the time. A local mall was having a display of dinosaurs. Connor loves dinosaurs. Let's take Connor and Liam to see the dinosaurs. Weee! Not only that, let's hype it up for Connor all week long, not telling him what it is, only that he's going to get a surprise. What could possibly go wrong?

It started out well with the usual Saturday morning gridlock and insanity of 3 Road traffic and RAV Line construction. Actually, it wasn't that bad. There was minimal profanity and once you let go of the basic rules of driving and any semblance of manners driving in downtown Richmond is quite fun. It's like a giant video game.

Anyway, we get to Aberdeen Centre, find parking and enter the mall. There's a big sign in the entrance talking about their Jurassic display, blah blah blah, animatronic dinosaur ride. Cool. So in we walk, Bern with Liam and Connor with me. We pass the animatronic ride first and Connor is already holding me tighter. It's a freakin Velociraptor with a saddle on it. Remember what those things sounded like in Jurassic Park? Remember when they stopped being cute and started eating people? The line up for that one was for big kids 'cause the little guys were having none of it. There was one little girl in a pink dress that was yelling at her parents. I'm not sure what exactly she was saying as it was mostly incoherent and in Cantonese, but I'm sure it was something like, "you put my ass on that mo'fo' I will make you pay for the rest of your sorry lives!"

Needless to say, we didn't hang around that one. Anyway, the main event is a life size Tyrannosaurus Rex in the centre of the mall. Connor's still keeping a wary eye on the Velociraptor but I can see the midsection of it up ahead. Then he sees it. WTF!? This is somewhat different than the usual friendly dinosaurs in our bedtime books and on Treehouse. If you've never seen one of these things, let's just say it's a good thing they've been dead for 65 million years. It's over two stories high, it's head is the size of a volkswagon and most of that head is made up of teeth. I take Connor out of the crowd a ways so I can take some pictures of him with the dinosaur in the background, just like a hundred other fathers around me. I got the picture above and one other, and then it roared. Then all hell broke loose as a thousand little kids including both my sons figuratively and literally shit their pants. Not only did it roar, it was animatronic too. And there was steam from a pretend volcano. Very impressive. Unless you're four.

I couldn't put him down again until we'd reached the safety of the Daiso store at the other end of the mall. Then it was a non-stop talk on how scary the dinosaur was and how we weren't going out there again.

Like I said, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

32 comments:

  1. FIRST!!! Going back to read...

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  2. Haha, wow, I would have done the same thing. I'm sure of it. Kids love dinosaurs, hey there's dinosaurs, let's go see the dinosaurs, d'oh.

    Sounds like it was an awesome display!

    SECOND!

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  3. My son, at four, would have ended up in my bed and glued to my leg for the rest of his developmental years. Thank you for experiencing this for me.

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  4. Admit it, you squealed like a girl too... didn't you?

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  5. He literally crapped his pants, and then you carried him around for the next hour or so... Ewww.

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  6. I would have loved to see all of those terrified faces when the thing spit fire. So what's the current opinion of dinosaurs, still terrified?

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  7. I really actually laughed out loud.. my kids are wondering what's wrong with me now... that's okay, they're getting used to the crazy lady sitting in the corner with her tiny laptop...

    thanks for a good morning laugh. awesome.

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  8. Sounds like our experience when we took Little Man to Universal Studios Jurassic Park area. Except it was all nice and quiet and he was excited until some moron decided to be a genious and press the fake dino sounds button constantly scaring the poor child. I swear! He was so excited to see the dinosaurs and was glad to be out of the heat. Needless to say, he prefers dinosaurs that you can hold in your hand and come with virtually no sound.

    We really know how to torture our 4 year olds don't we?

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  9. Sorry, sweetie. I quit reading this post at the beginning. I just read this post about a month ago when I went through your entire archives (can we say I'm now ahead of Steenky Bee in the stalker arena).

    So, I'll just say...great post!

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  10. Oh. my. God. Who thought of doing this to kids!

    And yes, I like others would have looked forward to taking my son who loves dinosaurs to this exhibit, only to have him cling to me like I was dipping him in fire.

    Wow. That was a really bad analogy. very disturbing.

    But you know what I meant.

    I hope.

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  11. We went see Walking with Dinosaurs at an arena. It was all pretty kosher until the life-sized t-rex turned his head to us and roared in full Dolby sound. The boy came out of his catatonia pretty quick though.

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  12. Bwahahaha!!
    Too funny!
    If I had more time, I'd be messing up your archives for more!
    You're linked!

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  13. I remember that blog, how can one
    forget a 1000 little kids (and probably a few parents) crapping
    their collective pants.
    It reminds me of your brother and
    his love of the circus. Esp. clowns, do you remember the clown
    approaching us and saying "hi guys"
    and your brother growling at him
    "get away from Me." Remember, never approach Cpt. Dumbass dressed as a clown, it could be very dangerous.
    l

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  14. You would also be shocked to know that characters like Piglet and Minnie Mouse can also cause a three year old to shit their pants in public.

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  15. The best laid plans...on the plus side at least you got a photo before the kid crapped his pants.

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  16. I LOVE this post. It's a great example of how we learn from our kids, sometimes more than they learn from us. And it's awesomely funny. Don't worry, he'll work it all out on a therapist's couch in 25 years or so...

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  17. Dude, You couldn't know you would scar him for life.

    I remember Canadian drivers. Must have been an adventure.

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  18. i'm kind of scared just reading the post.
    ;)

    my kids, on the other hand, live for that shit.

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  19. I bet, after the fact, it was pry a little funny seeing a roomful of kids get shared shitless...or am I the only heartless bastard around here? ;)

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  20. Goodfather, I'll have you know that I WAS FIRST on the original post. Well, maybe MAW beat me, but seriously, I totally made the top two.

    Dinosaurs are scary, but not real. Everyone knows they don't fit tidily into our history. Government conspiracies have buried those bones for us to uncover. Don't believe all the hype.

    But remember Land of the Lost? Yeah, me too. My husband and son sound just like Sleestacks when they sleep.

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  21. 17 months and 704 posts! Where can I get some of those blogging steroids? I bet they'd be more help to godfather than Elmo and the pirate hat.

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  22. hehe We had a similar experience with life-size animatronic dinosaurs at an outside exhibit...my then 5 yr old FREAKED OUT.

    It was not pretty.

    They made noises and moved...very creepy.

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  23. good stuff! I might have shit my pants too!

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  24. That's hilarious! My son used to be scared of a stuffed Winnie the Pooh chair, so that thing would be pure terror.

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  25. Gah! You know how people are having writer's block? I'm totally having commenter's block. The pressure is consuming me.

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  26. I just shit my pants on principle alone....damn.

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  27. I still remember when I was 4 and my parents took me to some dragon show....my first nightmares, traumatizing....
    A giant Italian dragon with a Sicilian accent..still see it in my dreams

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  28. That's the reason we still haven't visited Santa Claus at the mall. For all my kids know he's a stranger in a weird outfit. And they aren't having it. And little girls can shriek at decibel levels only heard by dogs. And maybe velociraptors.

    I love this post. It's so freaking hilarious!

    Hey, speaking of kids...Did you see this week's episode of House? Those two little brothers and the one made the other one sick? I was sobbing when they walked out holding hands.

    Anyhoo, great post, thanks for sharing it (again).

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  29. Sadly, I am all too familiar with the Velociraptor sound of which you speak. That's the noise my baby makes when he's mad. Same pitch. Same volume. Directly in my ear. It's lovely. I now have permanent hearing loss. But at least he's cute, so we keep him.

    I don't think J would have enjoyed the exhibit much either. He enjoys freaky and scary looking stuff. But that would have probably been too much for him. And that T-Rex looks nothing like any of the beasts on "Harry and His Bucketful of Dinosaurs". So I'm afraid J would have been unimpressed. I'll remember this for the future. Thanks!

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  30. As my dad would say to me (like 100 times as a kid).... "That is what you get for thinking"
    hee, hee
    woo-hoo..... I am #32

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Come on, sailor. I love you long time.