Take That, Big Bird.

When my brother and I were little, there were always the special toys at Grandma's house. The toys that you couldn't wait to play with when you got there, because you never had them at home.

One of them was Candyland. There was just something magical about that old retro cardboard box held together with the brown packing tape that was smooth to the touch yet crunchy at the same time.

Yesterday, as I was volunteering like a good Samaritan at a toy drive, my brain stumbled upon this memory.

The memory of the little village.

It folded out to a full two blocks, with apartments, sidewalks, a little traffic light, and a hospital.

It was all very quaint and cute, if you didn't take into account the massacres.

Yes, that village was an instrument of extreme misfortune to the poor little people living in it. They didn't even have feet, just little stumps so they could fit into the cars, but they suffered nonetheless.

My brother and I could not wait to go get the village, set it up on the fluffy brown carpet in my Grandma's living room, and drop its inhabitants off of the traffic lights. We also pushed them out of windows, ran over them with cars, and staged massive automobile accidents.

But don't worry, there was a hospital. So it's all good.

Our favorite subject of attack was the ever-impeding, ever-annoying, ever-sappy ball of yellow feathers.

That's right. Big Bird.

If you thought that the rest of the village had it bad, then you may want to just stop reading now.

Or not. Because we inflicted the same hurt on Big Bird as we did all of the other unfortunate characters. He just was more experienced.

Try and make a happy lesson out of that, you stupid bird.

Talent

I often find myself wondering if I actually have any talent. It's almost impossible to tell for yourself how convincing your acting really is. So many times I find myself doubting.

And then I watch somebody who is truly bad.

And my faith is restored.

Like last night. I went to Mines to see my bro in a play, which, by the way, he was fantastic in.

But that cannot be said for all of them.

Like the girl with the poofy ponytail.

Umm, hello? It's the 1940's. Or something like that. Maybe 1930's. Or 50's. Whatever.

Point being, NO PONYTAIL. Especially not for you. Because your hair is ugly.

But I'm being petty. It wasn't just her appearance that was painful to the senses. Allow me to ellucidate.

She sucked.

I mean, awful. Bad, bad, bad. Poo.

For one thing, she was always smiling. So as soon as she came on stage, you saw her weird little smile lurking on her face, like it knew it wasn't really supposed to be there but it didn't have anywhere better to go.

Sometimes, though, her smile disappeared. 

It was replaced by her butt.

Here's how a typical scene would go: She would come onstage crying about the dead body or whatever (I mean come on, everybody else can hold it together, you silly maid), and while she was making these awful noises, the awkward little smile on her face would twist the noises until they sounded like she was crying into a vuvuzela.

A soon as she got the front of the stage, she would turn to face the actors. Meaning turning away from us.

So not only did we get to listen to the pathetic noises coming out of her inappropriately expressive mouth, we got to look at her backside as well.

Talk about best of both worlds, right?

Oh wait, wrong expression. I meant worst.

Thank god I'm not that bad.

Oh, I forgot to mention...

She lisped.