It's My TV….It's My Peanut Butter

One of the things I always lamented when my family lived in areas further removed from an urban center was the lack of access to museums, particularly art museums.  You’d think that the years of deprivation would have ha td me running straight for the Nelson-Atkins museum the moment I unpacked.

I’m ashamed to admit that my first trip?  Was today.

Granted, I’d tried once before last summer, but went running when the place was jam packed due to a new exhibit opening.

This time I wasn’t to be denied.   All three panels of a triptych of Monet’s Water Lilies were being displayed together (Nelson-Atkins owns one, the other two panels are owned by museums in Cleveland and St. Louis) for the first time since I was born.  And, Water Lilies was the first of Monet’s paintings I ever encountered (in Picture Memory when I was a first grader).  And on top of this, I had to settle something with myself where Impressionists (and Monet in general) are concerned.

I once had an encounter with a more art-cultured friend who gave something of a derisive snort when I said I liked Monet and several of the other Impressionists.  It was followed with the phrase.  ”Not a surprise.  Most average people do.”  The thinly veiled message was that liking Impressionists was something that only the bumpkins would do.  That they existed like pop entertainment for the masses who couldn’t appreciate finer things.  It’s kind of haunted me since.  I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time avoiding the Impressionists, trying not to like them.

I figured this was the test.  I’d go to see Monet, and while checking off the once-in-a-blue-moon experience, I’d look at this thing and make up my mind how I really felt about it.  If I enjoyed it, no more shame about what I liked.  If it wasn’t as impressive?  Well, then my artistic sense would have clearly matured and I could  look at the entire Impressionist movement as another school in the history of Art, no more or less good than the others.

So, I walked into the gallery room and…

I enjoyed the hell out of it.

If this is a sign of my lack of culture in the realm of visual art, so be it.  Because I spent over an hour having a total moment of zen staring at those panels, and I’d do it again.  I’m pretty sure it’s a color thing, especially with this particular work.  Blues and greens and purples and tiny bits of red masquerading as pink, all squished together into something I could stare at like a  semi-catatonic moron for hours on end.  I may have drooled a little.

Maybe it’s a sign that I’m an uncultured lout that I couldn’t get the same feeling about the arrangement of orange acrylic boxes in the modern section, or the million takes on “Madonna and Child.”*  However, i’m pretty much over my self consciousness and I’ve embraced my back-water nature.

*Side note:  While there are a number of reasons for which one could vilify the Catholic church, I’m choosing to call them out for hijacking the art world into several centuries of Madonna, Child and Occasional John the Baptist.  I’m a huge fan of variations on a theme, but that’s just fucking ridiculous.

My deepest apologies to those friends of mine with children because I’m pretty sure I’m going to offend at least a few of you.

But you deserve it.

You and your damn prams from hell.

Pram.  Stroller.  Baby buggy.  Whatever the hell you want to call it, these monstrosities are pissing me off.  And in some cases causing severe bruising.  There are SUVs smaller than these damned things.  Honestly, I get that you have your kid’s safety in mind, but do you really need a Sherman tank to wheel him around in?  Scores of children have managed to survive to adulthood and procreate additional spawn after having only been pushed around in those flimsy little strollers that look like a hammock chair on wheels with umbrella handles to push with.  Or with no stroller at all.  So I’m pretty sure you could spare the all-wheel drive monstrosity for just one day.

Especially in close spaces.  I was in a museum today, touring a special exhibit.  Now, setting aside the depth of “NOT WISE” involved in toting anyone from the under-2 set through a special exhibit on Princess Diana, let’s talk about the pram issue.  You know there’s going to be a lot of people–that’s why the tickets had time slots for entry–you know there’s going to be all kinds of display cases and things to maneuver around–that’s what exhibits are kinda known for–so why do you insist on crowding an already crowded space with your kid-wheeler?!?!?  Leave it in the car and tote the kid.  And don’t you DARE tell me that it’s too hard to carry the kid because NONE of the 5 strollers that managed to hit me today actually had a kid in it.  In all cases the kid was being carried by one parent/aunt/grandparent while another person was pushing that massive cart around, generally containing a baby-bag.  The bag that person could have carried on his/her shoulder, thus sparing us all from the Pram Problem.

And it’s not just museums.  Crowded restaurants and cafe’s.  WHY wouldn’t you leave it in the car? You’re not going to walk that far, and you’re going to be sitting down to eat anyhow.  There’s no room in the aisle and you know it, yet you park the beast right there by the table to everyone else, server and patron alike is stuck trying to find a way to get around it.

It comes down to this, oh proud mama’s and papa’s of today’s era:  You’ve got a misplaced sense of entitlement.  You have a kid and you believe this means stuff and you need a way to move it and it needs to be convenient from you.  Because it’s all for your kid.  And parenthood is sooooo importnat.

Yes, you have a kid.  Yes, that’s inconvenient for you and it means you have to have all this “stuff” to tote around with said kid.

Tough.

You chose to have them.  I don’t owe you any space in the aisles for that, so quit taking it from me.  I want kids myself, but when that day comes, I’ll go into it with the understanding that I’m gonna have to build up some muscles because the entire public shouldn’t have to give-way so that I can be comfortable and lazy.

I’ve already accepted that your kids are going to scream and cry and raise hell and kinda ruin a lot of other parts of my experiences in museums and restaurants and shops.  The least you could do is leave the damn Pram in the car.  Or at least watch where you’re driving the sonofabitch so I don’t come home with big bruises on my hips and back.

*Please note:  If you are in the extreme minority of today’s parents and actually leave the stroller in the car, or use one of the old-hammock style, or in some other ways attempt to minimize the impact on the rest of us, I applaud you and you are exempt from all beratement herein.