Or So I Thought...

Last night my preschooler was "reading" one of his latest favorites, "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom." For those of you not familiar with the book, all of the letters of the alphabet go up the coconut tree until the massive weight of them causes all to plummet to the earth. Some letters invite others to "meet" at the top of the tree, while others offer the challenge of "beat"-ing other letters to the top.

I don't want to ruin the ending, so I'll just continue with the point of my story. Since my son was "reading" it by memory, the words he recited reflected his interpretation of the story, or that is, the words he thinks he hears when someone reads the story to him. At first it goes, "A told B and B told C, I'll meet you at the top of the coconut tree." But in my son's violent re-telling, he recites, "A told B and B told C, I'll beat you at the top of the coconut tree." Yikes! Who knew A and B were such aggressive letters? I guess that's why they're first.

On the next page, after shrieking gleefully, D challenges E, F, and G to a race up the tree. But in my son's rendition: "Whee, says D, to E, F, G, I'll beat you to the cop of the coconut tree." Well, obviously there is a cop at the top. He's there collecting witness accounts of the butt-whooping A and B delivered to C.

Anyway, I'm sure once he actually reads, he'll figure out the more politically correct version of the coconut tree. His recitation reminded me of misconceptions I had as a kid. Things I thought I had straight in my mind but were really way off-base. For example, I thought the phrase "next door" was actually "next store," and I couldn't understand why we referred to other houses as stores. And speaking of houses, I was nearly certain that the house numbered one on our street was the first house ever built, and that's why it was assigned a one. Goes to show you how small a kid's world is. But I couldn't get it entirely straight in my mind because I considered that tee-pees were the first "houses" built, and how could this neighbor of mine have the first house ever built because it was not a tee-pee? Wow, sort of makes the whole coconut tree debacle seem not-so-crazy.

No-Frills TV

Last night I actually opted out of high-definition television. I wasn't watching sports or the latest adventure flick, just the VP debate. So why should it matter? Well these days everything is high-def...you'd be crazy to watch "regular" TV, right? I beat my husband to the couch last night, which probably has happened three times in our seven-year marriage. By default, I had remote control control. And since I'm not used to that kind of power, when the debate magically appeared after simply pressing the power button, I didn't wander off looking for another broadcast. Ten minutes into the debate, my husband congratulated me on finding a channel without "those graphics." My fixation with "those graphics" started last week...

We were watching our local CBS affiliate broadcast of the Obama-McCain debate. After a few go-rounds on what's wrong with Wall Street, I found that I couldn't focus on the candidates. I kept looking at the bottom of the screen where a waving American flag graphic flanked the network logo. I tried to concentrate, but my eyes kept coming back to that flag. So I asked my husband to find a different broadcast. (I did not have remote control control that night.) We went to the ABC affiliate. Same waving flag, only smaller. Moving on... NBC affiliate, even bigger graphics. Fox, more of the same. "Let's try CNN," my husband suggested. OH MY WORD... or rather, lots of words. Panic-attack-inducing graphics on both sides and bottom of the screen. There were six analysts rating the candidates throughout the debate, plus updates running on the bottom of the screen. As a last resort, we tried C-SPAN after crowing "No way will C-SPAN have graphics!" but they were running Congressional talks rather than the debate. Dizzy with visual stimuli, we settled on the ABC affiliate because it had the "slimmest" graphics. Fine. A few minutes later I was distracted by this shooting arrow thing revolving around the station logo. Overwhelmed I fell asleep ten minutes later.

But last night, having watched Curious George earlier, the television was already on Channel 11, the New Hampshire public tv station. I didn't even realize what channel I was on until my husband pointed it out. Of course we had to compare the low-def to high-def (I could discern Palin's lipstick color!). CNN was still running the same hyper graphics, and even though low-def, the Boston public tv station actually had a small PBS logo in the corner. (Even that sideways-looking, bald-headed, empty eye socket graphic freaked me out.) It was back to NH public tv, where I was able to follow every word and wink from the candidates.