The Scene: Yesterday, my new girlfriend’s place. We’ve been together for about two months. She has a 10-year-old daughter. I have no kids of my own.
Daughter is online and comes across the video Kiwi!. I happen to notice this before she hits play.
Me: “Hey, I’ve seen this, it’s pretty cool. Kinda sad ending though.”
Daughter: “Why?”
Me: “Just watch it.”
We watch the video. There is enough background noise that the thud at the end is inaudible.
Daughter: “I don’t get it. Why is that sad?”
Me: “Well, the kiwi can’t fly, so he fulfilled his life-long dream by setting up that cliff and jumping off, to pretend he was flying. What do you suppose happened when he got to the bottom?”
Yes, yes you do. You should have let her tell you what happened.
Besides, I am 35 years old and I refuse to believe he died. He didn’t! A kiwi that can use hammers and nails can also bounce, or maybe set up a huge mattress.
I’m 39 and I don’t think he died either. So as your elder, I’m telling you he didn’t. He had some sort of safety system set up at the bottom, because he was so smart.
Bah. She has learned two valuable lessons. First, that Life is Brutal. And second, that even though there’s a sudden stop at the end, the beautiful journey is worth it.
I always love how nature shows will show orca families with mommies caring for babies and teaching them to hunt. Poor little orca babies might go hungry. AWWWW
Then the next show is about mommy sea lions trying desperately to save themselves and their babies from the Orca Pod of Death and Dismemberment.
My family calls this last situation “the gnu principle”: “in any nature documentary there is a 90% probability to spot one or more gnus”.
Dad was sick for several years during which he watched a lot of TV, and there were only two channels available. One of them showed a lot of documentaries within the same period in which the other one would have gossip programs. "Gnus. Always gnus! Either it’s a herd of gnus going to the pond or a pack of lionesses selecting a weak gnu to hunt, but there are always gnus in the freaking nature documentaries! You get one about India and think ‘aha, this one won’t have gnus’ and then they show tigers hunting and then they show the lionesses hunting down a gnu because hey, lions and tigers are both big cats but they don’t hunt the same way and we had this footage around anyway. I’m going to buy Cousteau’s videos just because those don’t have gnus!
Well, or at least they didn’t last time I watched one. Who knows, they may have gnus now…"
Maybe what GESancMan needs is more gnus in his life.
At our house, the joke was puffins. It got so bad that my mom would walk into the living room, where my dad was watching another nature show on TV, and shout, “Oh no, not puffins again!” It got to be quite a gag, tormenting my mom with puffins. I even got her a Beanie Baby puffin for Christmas one year, and a box of Puffins cereal.
You should have let her tell you what happened.