And then, suddenly, it hits you…

There should be a word for the moment the realisation hits you that the situation is not all ok, not all spiffy and shiny. Obviously, calling it an “oh-shit-moment” does it’s job admirably, but I say a real, dictionary approved word is needed here. And I am pretty sure I am not the only one, so I say: come on and use the power of the internet, use it and come up with my word.

In another note, I just realised this is the second time I am asking all of you to come up with a word for me. Granted, last time it was a word that would chill the blood of an offending party to the point of involuntary suicide, but still.

Anyways, last Thursday the lovely Bienie and myself took our little butts into the cinema to watch the new animated picture “Happy Feet”, about a tap-dancing penguin. We’d both seen the previews, and I had found some tap dancing excerpts of our movie-choice. So we worked our way past the posters of the tapping P’guin, discussed the options of tapping within an animated environment, had a short conversation with the studenty girls behind us about the tapping options of your average penguin, and turned towards the screen to see a tapping penguin.
And we watched a penguin. And he tapped.

Then, roughly two scenes into the movie, two distinct and very separate realisations hit me.

The first, not at all unusual, was the fact that I needed to pee. And pee I needed. Not just a little nudge from the bladder upwards that he was in fact approaching fullness and would appreciate being empties anytime most convenient, no. No this was a full on bladder-kidney civil attack. For a second I truly felt like the next thing I was going to hear was a small “pop” and see my insides dribble softly out of the hole in my side. This did not, however, happen. I am quite happy about this, and so I imagine were the people who worked at the cinema. I have never worked in any cleaning capacity myself, but I imagine if I ever would, the thought “God I am happy there is no kidney debris to clean up here” would cross my mind more than occasionally.

The second realisation, somewhat less urgent but all the more persuasive for it’s subtle delivery, was “Kevin… you well and truly despise Tap… Why are you the FUCK here?!?”.
Now I never like shouting to myself, and would have severely disciplined me, but in this particular case, I had to agree with the vehemence of my feelings.

Because I really do hate tap. Don’t get me wrong, as a discipline and training it is remarkably difficult to master, it has subtleties well beyond my abilities to express and all the validity as an artform.
I just really do not like watching it at all. Really. Not one bit. If given the chance to ride a unicycle through a room filled with the spiderinfested corpses of clowns during a full moon on the anniversary of the day 20 circi (plural of circuses) burned down on an Indian burial ground while mad incantations were screamed across the ashes by the deeply burned clown who just managed to save himself with his spritzing carnation or watching a bit of tap, I would be willing to desecrate some clowny corpses in less time than it took you to read this sentence.
So I dislike tap. This sentiment was delivered by me on numerous occasions, I think only my diatribe on the inherent manipulations of small children had more airtime than Tap. But somehow this little fact had completely slipped my mind while planning to go to this movie, buying tickets for this movie, seeing the posters for this movie, and whatnot.

I turned to Zaandam-haling bombshell next to me and said this, and she answered with a weary “I know”…

So why not leave, you ask me? Was it the incessant sugary sweetness of the movie glue-ing you to your seat? Well, partly. Was it because you never walk out of a movie, having even sat through the cinematographically challenged disease-toting disaster that were AI and Intolerable Cruelty? Yes, this is also right. Actually, this is the only reason I kept my place in the theatre. Kevin be damned if he lets a fluffball on softshoe drive him out of his natural habitat.

Next thing, The bean turns to me, and whispers. What she whispers is surprisingly close to what I described above. “I need to pee, but if I stand up now I won’t want to go back again… so I am staying”
And we did. We were there to see roughly fifteen million hearts be made out of bubbles, fishcorpses, penguinphlegm, snow, stones, clouds, the sappy minds of thirteen 6 year olds. Seriously, if it is even remotely possible to make a heart out of something, this movie does it.

But in all fairness, the movie wasn’t the worst I’ve seen last year. Not the best, certainly, but also not the worst. If you have small kids and a full frontal lobotomie, by all means, go see it and be entertained. Just do not tap on the way there.

Stripes at half open,
Kevin.