so magnolia's been obsessed with trains lately. typically i won't let her near anything Thomas cause we just couldn't afford to indulge that desire. but when i heard the oklahoma railway museum was bringing in a real live Thomas ... well, i caved. so we took her out on sunday morning to go for a ride on the scary-ass Blaine the Mono from Stephen King novels. yes, the entire thing creeped me out. i already have an unhealthy reaction to any of those big school-mascot style costumes they always have at these events, you know the big mickey mouse, or the big easter bunny ... i just find them frightening in a House of 1000 Corpses kind of way. also we had to actually wake the child up early in order to get there on time. anyone who has a kid knows what a completely ridiculous idea this is. you never ever wake a sleeping child for any reason other than imminent bodily harm ... and even then you try to keep them asleep. so anyway, we were all cranky, tired, cold and kinda creeped out. just setting the mood, you know. we're waiting in line to have our picture taken with Sir Thophamm Hatt ... the conductor, i guess, who was a big school-mascot costume as described above. now this guy is creepier than most ... i'm not exactly sure why ... he's sort of featureless and smooth ... in an off-putting Jason sort of way. i lean over to jeremy, gesture towards the character and say something like "why do these things always have to be so damned creepy!" ... when i glance down and realize this little 7ish year old boy in front of me is soaking up every single word ... oops. and now it's his turn to go get his picture taken with the axe-murderer and he won't get anywhere near him ... terror in his young eyes. and i'm not sure whether to feel really guilty at having ruined the innocence of youth ... or to be proud that the kid had gained a healthy fear of creepy, too-smooth-faced strangers with enormous foam hands.
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