Building Bears
So two of the boys on the Forensics team decided they needed to bring their girlfriends back something from Chicago. Instead of asking one of the girls on the team what would be an appropriate gift, they thought that I would know what was best. They thought it would be good if they bought gifts from a souvenir shop because it was called “Feelings.” It didn’t matter that there was just junk in the shop.I convinced the boys to wait and find something more authentic when we went to Navy Pier later that evening. Upon our arrival at NP, the perfect gift opportunity presented itself: Build a Bear. I mean, what self-respecting teenage girly-girl wouldn’t want a bear that her boyfriend made her? So we drag the two boys to the Build a Bear Store.
Unfortunately, the older of the two guys has been told by one of the girls on the team, that maybe his girlfriend wouldn’t like a bear. Apparently, she’s not a real girly-girl, so the two of them go to look for her a piece of jewelry or something. That leaves the other 12 of us to keep the guy, who we’ll call TJ, in the store so that he can build his girlfriend a bear.
I’d never seen anybody build a bear before, but it was a fascinating process. TJ first had to select the outer shell for the bear he wanted, the whole time muttering how emasculating the entire process was. He then took the raggedy shell to an attendant whose job it was to stuff the bear. The attendant loo
ked at TJ, asked “hard or soft?” and we all burst into laughter. TJ looked even more humiliated, now muttering about how gay the entire process was. Well, it only got “gayer” because after the bear was stuffed, they gave TJ a heart, which he had to kiss before the bear would “accept it.” I’ve never seen someone turn as red as this teen did when he stared at the heart, debating whether to kiss it or not. Instead of kissing it, he almost bolted out of the store, but thankfully, one of the group blocked his path. Finally, after much hesitation, TJ kissed the bear’s heart and shoved it into its stuffing.
Then came what I think might be the most humiliating part. He had to hold the bear up and turn around in a circle. No explanation was ever given to the reason for this. I think the Build a Bear people probably know that by this time in the process, they’ve got you so beat down, that they could ask you to roll over and whine like a bear and you would, cause TJ sure did. This kid, who two years ago objected to the idea of pretending to dance in a duo, held a stuffed bear over his head and twirled around in the middle of a store in Chicago. Mother Earth smiled.
After twirling around, he was then instructed to go give the bear an air bath. For some reason, here, TJ tried to put up some resistance. Why, I’m not sure, but this portion of the process seemed excessively unreasonable to him. This is actually the part in the procedure that I thought made the most sense, but that’s just me I guess. I wouldn’t want lint and dust covering the bear I just kissed and held up as an offering to the bear gods of Olympus. So I had to intervene and help TJ scrub down the bear.
We ensured the bear was clean and TJ proceeded to put all the bear’s information into the computer so that he could generate a birth certificate for the bear. There ended up being a technical problem with the name, so he had to reprint the certificate a couple of times, but as of Sunday, May 28, 2006, the bear has been born.
And I do agree with TJ, his girlfriend better be impressed. Cause otherwise, he needs to dump her.
posted by cinegod @ 9:18 PM
1 Comments:
I hate to criticize you here, but I think you missed a chance to teach this boy a valuable lesson.
Dating is humiliating, and he will continue to be humilitated because of girls for, oh, probably, the remainder of his life. He thinks building a BEAR is embarassing? Ha! Wait until the first time he goes home to meet a girl's parents for a long weekend. Wait until he flubs his first Valentine's day/anniversary/birth of child. Wait until he has to summon up the courage to propose to a girl. Talk about humiliating.
I'm not trying to sugges that women are horrible creatures who serve to humiliate men. No, we women suffer our own humiliation and pain to date (childbirth ALONE is probably the most humiliating thing anyone can ever go through!) This is just the name of the game.
When my son was 4 month old, he met the daughter of my co-worker, Nora, who was 8 months old. He was fascinated by her. Having no control over his limbs, all he could do was stare at her. She was fascinated, too, but being older and more advanced, could reach right out and pull his ear.
Poor little dude! His face collapsed into tears brought on by the betrayal, and he buried his head in my shoulder. I whispered to him, "AJ, this is the first time, and it's definately not going to be the last time a girl hurts you."
Paybacks are hell, though. They met again two weeks ago. My son, now 7 months, reached right out, grabbed a hunk of her hair, and pulled with all his might. She cried, and I whispered the same thing to her.
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