Ain't Gonna Be Fooled by a Polar Bear

A while ago I receive two, very long, voicemails from my youngest sister.

No, let me correct that. It more or less went like this: she called, I answered, she said she needed to leave me messages, so I hung up. Then she called again. Then again.

When I finally got around to listening to them, I find out that Juliana has been dissecting children’s shows again. Specifically, songs on Nick Jr.

She starts the message by saying:

“I just heard a song, I’ve heard it before…a song on Nick Jr. it’s about this guy who wants to be a polar bear and he says he wants to be polar bear because they’re SOFT-WHITE-GENTLE and BIG.”

Background: my niece asking, “where’s my puzzle?”

OK, this kid is three and addicted to puzzles, which baffles me but whatever.

Back to Juli, “I just wonder if the lady…”

Then I hear Ruth asking again, “Where’s my puzzle”…

Juliana responds, “Hold on! It’s right there!”

Juliana continues without missing much of a beat.

“…if the lady who got her arm chewed off (I guess she didn’t get it chewed it was one clean swipe, one clean ferocious swipe), I wonder if she would say that they’re gentle. They’re white. They’re soft. They’re big. But they’re not gentle. Not when they’re eating you.”

“Anyway, I really don’t like the message they’re sending my kids.”

“K, I’ll talk to you later.”

That was the end of the first message.

I’m more than slightly amused and I can’t help but picture my sister in front of some animated show just shaking her head in disapproval of the song that’s accompanying it.

But HOLD UP! The phone rings again!

I see it’s Juliana again. I decide to let it go to voicemail, because who knows, maybe she hasn’t finished her thought. And guess what. She’s not done. Not at all.

After a while, I listen to her second voicemail.

“OK, so then I started thinking.  Remember that lady, she got it in her head that she wanted to swim with some polar bears, but when she got in she was having some com-pli-ca-tions. Because they wanted to eat her.” <this was said in a very, like duh, hello voice>

“Well, she probably had the same kind of idea that the freak on Nick Jr. has: That they’re gentle. I personally don’t think they’re gentle when they’re eating people, but maybe when they’re, like, roaming around the arctic, or wherever the hell they live, maybe they looked gentle to that guy and he must have not gotten the me-mo about the lady that got her arm bitten off in a violent rage from a polar bear. I remember that because I remember thinking, ‘that’s why I don’t care much for polar bears and I wouldn’t get close to a polar bear because, um, it’s always been my understanding that they’re not gentle.’ I don’t know. Maybe that’s how people see ‘em and that’s why they swim with ‘em. Who knows?”

“Ok, bye!”

And that was it.