The Jello Heart

In 1999 I started my VFX career working the graveyard shift at Centropolis FX.  I was one of three overnighters, but the daytime people hung around into the evening.   They were busy, but found time to play around.  A football-sized wad of Silly Putty could be bouncing nearby.  Someone in a Boba Fett mask might be tugging at it and yelling that it was "stuck."   Furbys babbled over the intercom.  An alarm clock that made chicken noises squawked loudly at 3:30 am from a locked room.
Then there was the pop-up prank.
Someone would remotely log into your machine and  run a command that caused an image to pop up, repeatedly, on your screen.   Usually it was something gruesome- as in is That's not marinara sauce and ravioli!  It's blood and-  -HOLY MOTHER OF GAWD!!!
One weekend I had a little fun.  Some revenge.
 I'd found a Jello mold shaped like an anatomical heart.  It came with instructions on how to make a remarkably realistic desert.  You prepared peach gelatin with condensed milk, let it set, hollowed out the "aorta" and painted the "veins" with food dye.  The result smelled fruity but looked liked it'd been snatched from the coroner.   Small patches of unmixed milk clung to the surface like fat globs.  I put it on a tray and dumped strawberry syrup "blood" around it.
That Sunday, I snuck  into work and put it in the fridge.  I figured people would think a Jello heart was funny.  Then they'd eat it.  Right?
I reported to work Monday night.
Not long after, my boss stuck his head into the office.  "That thing you guys left in the fridge..." he laughed.  "You guys are sick f_cks!"
I came forward as the sick f_ck behind the prank.  "Did you like it?" I asked.  "Did you have any?"
He looked at me funny.
Later that night I learned they thought it was real- that I'd gone to a butcher and stuck a bloody beef heart into the fridge, next to the leftover bagels and black bananas.   It was immediately thrown out (they made the new guy do it.)  Nobody seemed to believe it was "only" Jello.  Didn't they notice it smelled like peaches?  Or were they so horrified that they didn't get close enough to inspect it?
 I'm not sure what's more disturbing- their lack of faith in my artistic ability (I did make fake stuff look real for a living, right?), or their assumption that I'd bring a actual heart to work and stick it in the fridge...
Sure, I'm weird, but not that weird.

Tiny Tim's Tongue

I can't act, but that didn't keep me out of a community theater adaptation of A Christmas Carol once. I'd volunteered to be an extra, but got a small speaking part when someone else backed out at the last minute.
The kid who played Tiny Tim could act, and was cute. He was also a brat. The best part of rehearsal was his death scene. If you remember the story, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge a bleak future, where innocent little Tiny Tim has died. The family gathers around his body. His father sobs "My poor little, little Tiny Tim!"
And poor, little , little Tiny Tim would stick his tongue out. Everyone cracked up laughing. His mom shouted for him to knock it off. Yet each time they practiced the scene, out came the tongue.
I'm not sure how they got him to play the scene straight in front of the audience. Maybe they chloroformed him.

Mr. Chicken

I created Mister Chicken as a joke.
It was 2001 and I shared an apartment with a vegetarian friend. He took it seriously, shunned leather, and even disliked Tofurkey (a turkey substitute made from tofu) because it "Tasted too much like flesh."
He surprised me one day by saying he'd gone out last night and eaten Hot Wings. Hot Wings! It was so out of character that I drew a chicken with hooks where his feet and wings should be. He glared out accusingly and said "I know what YOU did!"

The Face in the Corner

I quit ballet as a kindergartner. I told my folks I didn't like it. I lied.
I liked ballet lessons- the tights, the tutu, the little shoes. I could pretend I was pretty and graceful. I remember doing toe exercises at the bar as music played from an old record player with wooden parts. Each class ended with a mini hula lesson, complete with crunched plastic leis in crayon colors. Best of all, after each class you got a jelly bean! I loved it.
Then I saw The Face.
It was a quarter-sized flaw in a ceiling corner. A mix of peeled, paint, cracks, and water damage. It was puckered and scary looking. Each time we danced around the room, there it was! I was old enough to know it was harmless, that it was "only" plaster. Yet there it was, looking at me each time I passed it.

Soon, the Face in the Corner overshadowed the whole class. Who cared about fancy outfits, music, hula or jelly beans when there was that awful face waiting for me! I knew sharing this fear with adults would get me nowhere. Just a It's your imagination and it can't hurt you lecture. Instead I said I didn't want to be a ballerina anymore.
No more music, no more tutu, no more scary face in the corner.

The Exception

There's an old notion that it's dangerous to stand near a speeding train because you'll get "sucked under the wheels." Not so, say the experts. I think they even did a Mythbusters episode where they parked a manikin near the tracks and let the trains roll. It survived.
Leave it to me to be the exception.
As a teen, my family sometimes took the train down to a day at the beach. I spent the day coasting the waves on a orange foam Boogie Board. It was almost as big as I was. A rubber and Velcro tether kept it leashed to my wrist. This came in handy: if a monster wave came I could duck under it without losing the board.
It was on dry land when things went wrong. We stood on the grass, waiting for the train home. One stopped, but when I got close I could see it wasn't the right one, and stepped back.
I didn't step back far enough. The train pulled away, creating a breeze that lifted my board like a kite. This was funny until I realized it was pulling me forward too. The train sped faster, and I found myself being tugged harder, hopping forward so as not to fall over.
I yelled and my dad pulled me away. I can't say for sure if I'd have been sucked under the train, but my board certainly would have. At the very least I'd have gone for a ride.

Glitter Cheese Party

Years ago my (then) roommate and I threw a cheese party.
We got a copy of Glitter, Mariah Carry bomb.
The snacks were cheese based- cheese crackers, mini cheese pizzas, cheese cake, and cheeze ball puffs. We had veggies too, with Bleu Cheese dressing.
For decor we cut holes in tissue paper to simulate Swiss cheese. I painted dark spots on two tall yellow candles for a similar look.
The fun started when we played the movie. We'd munch on the snacks, and pelt the screen with cheese puffs whenever the film got cheesy.

"We Can Tell You're On Something!"

In 2000 worked night shifts.
I was driving home around four am and accidentally turned right on a red light (the sign was placed between two corners just meters apart. I thought it referred to the second corner, not the first) Red and blue lights cop lights flashed in my rear view mirror. I pulled over.
Officer Jerk asked for my license and registration, and turned his flashlight on my face. "She's blown," he observed, as partner Officer Jerkette looked on.
I wasn't sure what this meant, but they cleared up. My pupils were huge. Surely I'd been partying all night and was as coked out as a 1977s dance club.
I wasn't alarmed. For one thing, I'd never done coke (or meth, or crack) in my life. Secondly, my pupils are unusually large. ( I'd seen an eye doctor about it a few years earlier. He confirmed they were big but otherwise healthy). Surely the cops would realize this was a mistake.
Not so. They didn't buy my explanation, patted me down, and searched the car for my "stash".
They were convinced I was a drug fiend. Every thing I said was interpreted that way.

Me: I was coming from work! It's just up the street. Ask them yourself.

Officer Jerk: We don't need to get your work involved in this.

Me: Yes, ask them where I was and what I was doing. They're my alibi.

Officer Jerk: You came from the Alibi Room?*

The Advil and other over-the-counter items in my purse? Obviously these were to quell the side effects of my evil habit.

All they found in my car was a blister pack of some sort of herbal vitamin suppliant. It was obviously a legal, commercial product. Officer Jerk just knew it was something worse.
"What's this?" he demanded.
"It's yours if you want it," I said, knowing this "evidence" wouldn't get me in trouble.
"That's okay," he said. "I don't like to put things in my body." Jackass.
He thought he found the jackpot in the trunk. I kept a sketchpad with me, plus pencils, and a sharpener which I kept in a baggie to catch the shavings. Officer Jerk raised the shaving-filled baggie in triumph.
"And what might this be?" he asked, like he'd caught the naughty kid at the cookie jar.
When he put the flashlight on them he agreed that they were, in fact, pencil shavings.
They also found a true crime book. They thought that was funny. Har de har.
I thought them finding nothing would be the end of it. It wasn't.
"We can tell you're on something," Officer Jerkette kept saying. "Admit it! We can tell by the way you're acting**!"
"I'm not on anything!" I said. "Can't you just run a test or something?"
"We can arrest you and do a blood test," she said, gravely. "And when it comes out positive that's six months in jail. Is that what you want?"
By now I upset. Getting blamed for something I didn't do. Something I never did. Having everything I said twisted to support their stupid theory. The fact that I might be arrested for something I didn't do. Tears rolled down my cheeks.
"If you didn't do anything, why are you upset?" Officer Jerkette demanded. "This doesn't add up."
Next came roadside tests. Close your eyes, spread your arms, touch your nose etc.. By now the sun was rising and commuters could slow down and watch the show.
"Admit what you did," they said, at least five times, "And we'll let you go.***"
Then they stepped away to discuss whether or not to arrest me. I suspect at least one of them had reluctantly figured out that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't a coke-blowing, meth-smoking, crack fiend after all. After five or ten minutes of chatting, they said that they'd "give me a break" and "only" give me a ticket. That was nice of them.

*A nearby bar.

**Earlier that night I had worried that there was something "wrong" with me that made people think I was weird. (I was something of a black sheep at that job- not shunned, but defiantly not one of the gang.) And now professionals in uniform were telling me how odd I was acting...

***Have innocent people ever fallen for that line and confessed to something they didn't do? I'll bet it's happened.

The Beach Storms Me

In 1999, I took SCUBA lessons. It seemed like a good idea- I liked snorkeling. I lived near the ocean. Why hadn't I done this years ago?
The first lessons (in the same pool I'd learned to swim, decades earlier) were easy. Then the day came. The day we'd venture into the ocean!
I couldn't wait. There'd be fish! Marine wildlife! The Redondo Canyon (an offshore fault I'd heard of since childhood)!
Problems started on the beach. The water is cold, so you have to wear a wetsuit. This makes you buoyant, so you have to strap on weights. Add fins and SCUBA gear and you're more encumbered than someone in a Mickey Mouse costume.
"Okay guys, " the teacher said, "Wade in until it's deep enough to swim. The go to the buoy"
I started in. The water was up to my knees when a wave slapped me sideways.
"Pull her out! Pull her out," the teacher screamed. His thug helper yanked me into deeper waters. The carcass of a shovel fish smacked my face.
Somehow, I made it to the buoy.
The water was cold, brown and cloudy. Maybe it was runoff from the storm drains. Or leftovers from the nearby sewage treatment plant. No fish, no invertebrates, not even sea weed. Just the chain of the buoy snaking down into darkness.
When the teacher and his helper got the rest of us weenies out to the buoy it was time to visit the ocean floor. Fifteen feet under it was darker, colder and cloudier. I kept drifting upside down. A white flounder zipped by. The teacher gestured towards a dark hazy area- apparently the Redondo Canyon.
We returned to the surface. Another girl forgot to inflate her buoyancy bladder, grabbed me and pulled me under. I strangled her hit the button to inflate it for her. A guy was throwing up loudly. (He'd warned us earlier that even floating in water made him seasick. Why he was paying for the opportunity to puke through a SCUBA regulator escapes me.)
The instructions for leaving the ocean sounded simple:
Swim to shore until it's shallow enough to stand, then walk out. If a wave knocks you over, crawl out.
I almost made it: two feet of water, one foot... Wham! A wave slammed me down. Time to crawl out...
...but the weights and equipment were too heavy. I couldn't lift myself!
"C'mon!" the teacher hollered from the shore. "Crawl out! ^&*(*()!! Crawl out! Crawl out!"
Every few seconds a new wave smashed over my head, than pulled back and sucked me deeper into the sand. I was terrified that I'd drown or be buried. The teacher seemed to be under the if-she-really-tried-she-could-get-herself-out fantasy.
Nonsense. I wanted out of there more than anything. I was trying desperately to push myself up. It wasn't working!
Disgusted with my "laziness," the teacher finally dragged me beyond the waves and, without the current, I was able to stand. It was only then that I discovered that, while I didn't have the strength to lift myself when weighed down, I was strong enough to have chewed the nubs off the mouth piece.

The Willies

Did you ever get "The Willies?"
Where you find a place so creepy that you can't stay?
Where were you when it happened?
It happened to me on The Big Island in Hawaii one summer.
I was in my teens, vacationing with my family. I wanted to see the Southern Cross (and nearby Alpha Centauri) for years, and knew they would be low in the southern sky at dusk.
The threes and shrubs of the resort blocked the lower parts of the sky, but I knew I'd have a good view from the huge lava field nearby.
The sun went down. As the sky darkened. I hiked to my observation post, delighted that I'd finally get to see parts of the sky I couldn't see at home. Alpha Centuri will be the brightest one I reminded myself and if you line it up with [the second brightest star] it'll point to the top of the...
Suddenly the lava field loomed before me. Hours earlier it'd looked like a sea of black rocks under a postcard-blue sky. Now it was blackness. Vast blackness. It was the creepy!
There was no time to search for famous stars or constellations. I got out of there!
My fear didn't make any sense. It wasn't like there were lava monsters or Jack the Hula Ripper on the loose...
...why was that lava field so spooky at night?

Bat Crackers!

The strangest tongue lashing I ever got was because I was mean....
to a photograph...
...of a bat.
Nellie and I lived in the same dorm. She seemed nice, liked animals, and had lots of books about them in her room. One day I thumbed through her Field Guide to Mammals of North America.
The bat section caught me off guard. These were strange looking critters: beady eyed balls of fur with needle teeth. Ears and snouts that looked like alien leaves.
"Some of these look funny!" I giggled, holding up the book. "Check out this bat."
Nellie looked like I'd slapped her. She snatched the book away.
"How dare you make fun of him!" she hollered. "The bat can't help how he looks! What if you were that bat!? You shouldn't judge by looks, you know!"
I could understand her being upset if I'd joked about a person ("So-and-so looks funny, let's avoid her,") or if I'd said something like "And since I think bats look funny, I'm going to throw rocks at them."
Maybe I should have said "Look, lunatic. If this bat were in this room, hanging from your curtain rod, would he know I was 'judging' him? Even if he did know, why would he care? He's a bat! If he told all his bat buddies that humans looked strange, would you care?"
Instead I made some excuse for leaving.

The Crack that Roared

Most people never saw the Sesame Street cartoon where cracks on the wall come to life:

Those of us who did see it as kids had remarkably similar reactions:

• "Crack Master," the mean crack, terrified us!
• We've never forgot the cartoon, and now would absolutely love to see it again.
  

Various comments about the clip:

"...not nearly as scary as the cartoon with the talking crack in the wall. That still haunts me." -Ann Arbor, Michigan1

"... that **** cartoon with the crack in the wall that came to life (btw, i *REALLY* want to see that so if anyone has it, please let me know!)"-Illinois2

"--One I have NEVER forgotten is the 'crack' video... ...I remember both anticipating and dreading the possibility of watching it every time SS came on. if anybody [finds it], POST POST POST!!!"3

"Good God, I have periodically searched for "crack, camel, master crack" for years .... ...This has to exist somewhere. God, I can't imagine how normal I might have been if I hadn't been exposed to [it]as a 3 year old?"4

"This is so strange. I thought I was alone in how this one little cartoon freaked me out and has stayed with me ever since... ...Anyway, if anyone does find it, please please share with the rest of us so we can finally close this chapter."5

" I was Googling around and found your reference to the Sesame Street "crack" cartoon, and I was wondering if you have ever found it? I am SO very relieved to see that it either really existed, or we all have some kind of mass psychosis! Seriously, I have been looking for this clip forever, because it scared me so much as a kid and I need closure! :)"
(email to me)

"...a child looking up at the cracks in the ceiling and spotting various animals. Suddenly... a horrible face appears in the wall and says something like 'I am Crack Master!' - But just then the wall plaster crumbled to the floor... 'He'd destroyed himself, being mean.' Yeeergh, that still gives me the shivers."- United Kingdom 6

"When I was a kid, there was an animated Sesame Street vignette that absolutely scared the living crap out of me. [It featured] a big evil-looking face composed of cracks behind some door. I'd run out of the room when it came on. I was terrified of cracks until I was about twelve. I'd pay good money to see this vignette today and see what scared me so much..."7

"When I was a kid, there was an animated skit that used to have me screaming and running from the TV... ... It was about this girl sitting in her room on a rainy day. She has a whole bunch of cracks on the walls in her room (I guess she had plaster walls). As she's sitting there, her imagination starts to go wild, and she sees the cracks form into different shapes, mostly animal shapes, and they start to come to life. There's a camel, and a monkey...
...and behind it is a horrible looking splinter crack monster in the plaster with a really scary face! ...It claims that it is the crack master... ...I remember when the skit started, I was like "Oh no!" And started to scream and then when the face appeared I became hysterical! I had horrible re-occurring nightmares based on it for the entire time it was on the show. I've been trying to find it ..." -Iowa x

An impressive legacy for a cartoon that aired less than a dozen times in the late 1970s and then vanished*.

Click here to find out how I finally saw it again.

*It's not on any dvd that's for sale. I've never seen it mentioned in books or articles about animation. It's not on the internet in any form (and probably never will be.) I'd buy it in a minute if it was legitimately for sale. Production art too!

Phantasia at the Old Towne Mall

If you scaled down Disneyland's Main Street U.S.A. and added a low ceiling, you'd have the long-vanished Old Towne Mall. I spent a lot of time there when I was little. Instead of the staples of most 1970s malls (the organ store, the fashion shops, the record store etc...) it had gift and hobby shops, a double decker carousel and two dark rides.
The dark rides were The Castle* and Phantasia. The former was a spookhouse ride ( which I rode twice, with my eyes shut). Phantasia was kid friendly. A chairlift took you through fairy tale scenes. The climax was a glowing green spinning tunnel. People who were older at the time remember the ride as "cheesy" and "cheap." My second-grade self thought otherwise. It was a ride! It took you into another world!
I'm not sure what went wrong. Maybe bored teenagers broke things. Maybe the mall (which had trouble staying afloat) couldn't afford to maintain it. Possibly both. Phantasia began to fall apart.
I was too little to understand why anyone could neglect or damage a ride. I was still in the It's another world! mode....
...and my other world was getting creepy! Why was it falling apart? Why was the main character in the scene slumped over his window like he was dead? It spooked me. I couldn't get the "dead guy" out of my head for a long time.

*Possibly Dracula's Castle or Count Dracula's Castle.

Deloris

Everyone has some details about themselves that make them different. Maybe they're allergic to wheat and soy. Maybe they know someone famous. Maybe they survived smallpox when they were five. Some people bring these tidbits up once or twice. Others find excuses to cram them into any conversation:

• "Your kid has a fever? That's nothing. I had smallpox when I was five...!"

• "You went to Disneyworld when you were five? Heck. WhenIwas five, I had smallpox!
• "You're worried that the six inch gash over your eye will leave a scar? Hell, when I was little I had smallpox and my parents were totally worried I'd end up spotted like a leopard but I only got a few pockmarks near my butt. Wanna see 'em?"
  

Deloris didn't have smallpox. She did have diabetes. She was a master at working it into any conversation. Had we watched Neil Armstrong land on the moon together, she'd probably interrupt the "One small step for a man," speech with "If I went to the moon I'd have to bring insulin with me because I could die if I didn't have it."
Other people I knew with the same condition were discrete. They might mention it once or twice, but it wasn't something the babbled on and on about. Deloris was different. Not only did she talk about it, she made sure she got her daily fix in front of as many people as possible. Heaven forbid she shoot up in another room most people did. Anyone who questioned her etiquette got a lecture about how "insensitive" they were to her plight.
She complained about other symptoms too. This hurt. That hurt. She often carried a book of symptoms with her so she could read up on what might be wrong with her. A "maybe I have [condition X] or [disease Y] because [body part z] is bothering me!" statement would follow.
It was ridiculous. It was annoying. Her You should feel sorry for me act slowly coaxed my evil side to speak up. "I don't care what's wrong with you and I don't want to hear about it any more." I blurted.
"You're insensitive!" she huffed.

The Unwanted Oscar

Oscars were popular when I worked at the tropical fish shop. They're cute, pugnacious, and intelligent. They have personality. Some even like to be petted. They have one serious drawback: they grew very large. Inch long youngsters become ten inch* bruisers. Unless your tank holds more water than your tub, you've got a problem. Owners sometimes returned the big guys in exchange for smaller fish.
This had its problems. While magnificent to look at, they cost more to feed, took up a lot of room, and were harder to sell.
Still, I didn't expect it to lead to the callous treatment one Oscar got.
He was almost a foot long. A scar over his eye resembled a disease called hole-in-the-head**. As you probably guessed, the super-sized, diseased-looking fish wasn't selling.
One day I took out the trash. Something in the dumpster moved. It was the foot-long! Someone had thrown him in the trash, alive! I couldn't believe anyone could be so mean. He lay gasping amongst the trash, in the hot sun.
I ran in, got the biggest, longest net, went to the rescue. I almost toppled into the dumpster to get him out. I splashed him back into his tank. He seemed okay.
"Someone put the big Oscar in the trash," I told my boss. He seemed surprised.
Was he? Or was he in on the plot?
A few days later, the fish was gone. Was he re-dumpestered when I wasn't there to save him? Released in a local pond? Or did he actually find a good home?

*Wild ones can be over a foot long.
**Really, that's the name of the disease.

Ghost Stories

I don't believe in ghosts now, but I did when I was little. I was a sucker for "true" ghost stories I read in books. By day I'd find them spooky and thrilling. At night I'd be petrified. What if, I wondered, just thinking about ghosts will summon one to my bedroom? When the sun rose, I was back to reading ghost stories.
Here's the scariest one I remember:
It took place in a junk shop in (or near) Brighton, England. A book lover hears there's lots of old books in the basement and goes down to check them out. He finds an old kitchen and a zillion books. He starts reading and loses track of time when...

"Suddenly he saw something move. He looked up. Across the room stood the back of a woman. She seemed to be working at the sink.
"Who are you?" he shouted. "Who are you? What do you want?"
She turned and looked at him. She looked like she'd been dead for years. Her eyes were empty sockets. Her cheeks were rotting holes. It was the ugliest thing he'd ever seen...*"

He throws his book. It goes through her. She vanishes. He dashes up the steps.
Upstairs he meets the land lady, who can't believe the shopkeeper let someone down there after dark. It's the ghost of a murdered woman, she explains. Her husband killed her...

"cut her up, and buried her under the sink... ...I met it once on the basement steps. It went right through me and left a chill that didn't go away for weeks!"

It was the grand slam of a ghost stories. A scary ghost! A murdered woman! A chopped up body! A chill that woudn't go away for weeks! Scary!

Two thoughts in retrospect:

• The story is well told. The ghost doesn't just pop out and go "boo!" First we see a mysterious woman (Who's this?), then we discover she looks hideous (yikes!), then we discover stuff goes through her (!) and then she vanishes. Then we get a gruesome explanation (Her husband did what!?) plus the blow off detail of the landlady having the ghost walk through her.
• This story was in a book aimed at school aged kids. How on earth did a story that included a guy chopping up his wife end up in a kids book?

*It's been almost 30 years since I've read it but I remember most of the words.

Cranky Creepy Christmas Past

Years ago, when I still lived with my parents, I was a block away from a neighborhood that went insane with Christmas decorations. Lights hung from every house, tree or shrub. Candy canes, snow men, Santas, reindeer and elves were everywhere. Many houses had animatronic decorations- a working train, a ferris wheel, caroling pigs, and even life size talking, gesturing Santa. People from all over the Los Angeles drove to see it.
One winter I had my eye on Jeff. He was in some of my classes. I didn't know him well and wanted to change that. When he mentioned he'd always wanted to see the lights, I told him I lived nearby and asked if he'd like to see them with me. He said yes. Not a date by any means, but at least a chance to get to know Jeff better!
When he called to confirm plans, he asked if he could bring some friends. I said sure.
(Why not? Maybe one of his friends would be even cuter!)
I asked who else would be swinging by.
"Oh, my friend Buzzy, maybe my brother, and that girl from The Crab Shack."
That girl from The Crab Shack.!? He'd mentioned her a few weeks ago- that he'd met her at a party but was turned off by her pierced tongue and smoker's breath. I'd assumed she was out of the picture.
Way to go, Namo! I thought. Not only is Jeff seeing someone else, but he's taking her to your home! And then you can watch them take a romantic stroll through the Christmas lights!

Jeff, Buzzy and The Girl from the Crab Shack showed up on time. I invited them in for eggnog but Jeff said he didn't like eggnog. I was secretly glad not to have them in the house.
We headed for the lights. Music played, carolers sang, lights twinkled, and I acted as festive as I could. Nothing's worse than being in a bad mood when you're surrounded by stuff telling you how wonderful everything is.
Buzzy cut the visit short. He'd wondered off, than jogged back.
"Where you been?" said Jeff.
"There's a school next door. I wanted to use the *&$@!! bathroom but the %^&#@!! doors were locked." he said.
"Use my place," I said. "It's just up the street."
"Nah that's okay," he said. "I already went."
Jeff howled with laughs and pressed him for details. He boasted he's left a "surprise" for the kids, then complained was cold and had seen enough of the stupid lights. If The Girl from the Crab Shack said anything, I don't remember.
Soon they piling into Jeff's car, off to some other adventure.
I was glad to see them go!

The Christmas Cookies (They're Man Made!)

When I taught preschool, Christmastime meant cookies. Parents brought them. Some were homemade: chocolate chip, oatmeal, maybe even peanut butter. Some were shortbread tins. Once in awhile we'd even get a tin of fancy cookies: the kind that came with embossed chocolate coating.
One year Otto's mom presented us with an Oreo holiday tin. Kids rode sleighs, built snowmen and ice skated on the lid. Mmmm I thought. Oreos! I cracked open the box.
These weren't Oreos.
A ramshakle pile of animal-like shapes nested inside: Red, blue, yellow, green and as bright as Play-Doh. The dye bled into the paper towel beneath them.
"We made them," Otto's mom said. "They're sugar cookies. Try one!"
I picked up a blue one. It was like picking up an ink pad. Blue oozed onto my fingers. Then I noticed the glitter. Not cake sprinkles, but metallic craft glitter! And it had a plastic googley eye!
"We spent all afternoon making them," she added. "They're really good!"
This reminded me of the scene from Eraserhead where the Henry's invited to dinner and served an oozing Cornish game hen with kicking legs. The host boasts "We got chicken tonight. Strangest damn things! They're man made! Little damn things. Smaller than my fist, but they're new!"
If she thinks plastic and glitter are edible, what else might be in them? I wondered.
"They look delicious," I lied, eying the mutant cookie like it was a rare gem. "I'll save them for after dinner."

Respecting Others

Mr. Big Shot, Squisher of Dreams

I've been fascinated by animation since I was little. By my teens I decided I'd either become an animator or the person who did storyboards. But how would I get to be either of these? Sure, loved to draw and tell stories, but so did a lot of people, many more talented me. And it wasn't like there were animation studios on every corner. Did I have a chance? How could I increase my chances?
I read everything I could find. Information was limited. These were pre-internet times. The main library only offered a few outdated books. So did branch libraries. Bookstores at the time were modest barbershop sized places. I had some luck, but still wasn't sure what I should start doing now to increase my chances.
I wrote to the Disney studio to ask what to do. I figured I'd get a form letter that would set me on the right track.
The reply wasn't a form letter. It was from a higher up (not an animator or a story department person, I might add). We'll call him Mr. Big Shot. It opened like this:
"You sound confused. Do you want to be a writer or an artist?"
His answer to my questions?
"Why don't you take it upon yourself to do some research at the local library?"
I forget other details, but the gist of the letter seemed to to be that I either lazy or clueless, perhaps both-
"If you want to make money, go into law" he concluded (did he think I my main motive was getting rich?). Brief nebulous nonsense about magic and dreams followed.
Magic? I thought dreams!? It was like hearing "You can play with us if you become cool enough" on the playground.
My animation dreams died with that letter. I'd learned nothing. Mr. Big Shot at Disney seemed disgusted with me. Maybe I'd even blacklisted myself. Had I really sounded so stupid in my letter? Maybe I was stupid.
Well, it's just as well, I thought. I can't really draw that well anyway.

Shocks and Bonds

(Author's note: here's something I wrote in Lynda Barry's Writing the Unthinkable Class. It's in the second person, but it happened to me in the 1980s)
Disneyland's Main Street Penny Arcade is full of early 20th century amusements. Most are in wood cases and cost a nickel. There's black and white slide shows, a wooden fortune teller, and a machine that will rate your kissing ability (with lightbulbs) when you squeeze the handle.
You're at the Electricity is Life shock machine. For a nickel you can test how tough you are: insert the coin, grab the two upright bars, and see how long you can hold on. An increasingly strong stream of electricity flows through your hands and arms. A dial measures progress.
Are you tough enough to take it?
You admire tough people in adventure stories. Do you have any trace of toughness? You've never taken a bullet or won a sword fight. Could you? Maybe the shock machine will tell.
The current starts as a faint buzz. It grows stronger as the dial rises, points up, than dips to the right. It hurts, slightly. Like a Novocain shot. Your arms grow stiff.
Don't wuss out! Hold on!
A bell goes off. The electricity stops. The relief is soothing, like you've dipped your arms in warm water.
You did it! You're tough! Okay, this isn't as tough as taking a bullet, but you didn't wuss out.

One day (you spent a lot of time at Disneyland) the machine is broken and gives shocks for free. Dozens line up for free shocks. Then everyone finds they can all get shocked together by holding hands, with members on each end of the chain touching the machine. It's an odd bonding experience.

Years later you question the saftey behind playing with a malfunctioning shock machine. And is it ethical to get shocks you didn't pay for? Or were you shocklifting?