Pajiba

You used to watch "Just Shoot Me," didn't you?

AT&T can't get to me like that. You know what does, though? That manipulative writing in the last three episodes of The Big C. And the Sanctus from the Bernstein Mass.

Tis the season for panhandling. I naturally just don't trust people, but I become even more wary when it comes to people and money. Specifically, my money. I was at a Starbucks once in a very nice, rich neighborhood (that I don't live in btw, I was at the Borders nearby)and a lady asked me for money. At the time, I was in a good mood and didn't think twice and just gave her 5 bucks. It wasn't until I was driving home that I thought about what happened. She was a nice looking lady, she didn't look disheveled, and she was carrying a bag from Cache. She was at a Starbucks...in a rich neighborhood, with a guy that I think was her husband/bf. Didn't see them in or around a car. She said she had been sick and needed money for her children.

Maybe she really was sick and needed money. An area like that is the perfect place to go. I just couldn't help but question why she was even out, or how she had gotten over there. If she lived nearby, how hard up for money could she have been? I think people feel a little too comfortable asking me for money because I look nice, enough, and I look younger than I actually am. So maybe I too have a softer side than I would like. I'd like to thank someone would help me if I was in trouble but I hesitate when helping people.

Recently I cried at that new GM commercial. But i'm a girl so it's not as bad I guess.

When I see Santa, I'm gonna ask him to bring you some balls.

(I kid, I kid)

I have no kids, so this commercial has no power over me. But you show me one of those ASPCA ads with the sad-eyed kittens and Sarah McLachlan wailing in the background? Then it's Niagara Falls, Frankie Angel.

I bet you look great in a Cosby sweater, Tracer.

Wait until they get older and all those problems.

Yeah, my kids definitely get over on me. I'm a lot softer on them than I should be. I know I'm not the same sort of father mine was. (I consciously try not to do the things that my father did that used to piss me right the fuck off).

However, the hurts are deeper and last longer. And you would gladly take the bullet for them if you could.

When my wife and I hear a story on the news about some parent doing some rotten thing to their kid, we just shake our heads in amazement. It's inconceivable to us to ever treat our kids that way.

Those without kids don't understand. And if you have kids, then no explanation is necessary.

My husband would tell you that he feels the same way. A couple months ago he was waiting in the deli line at the grocery store and saw an adorable little blonde girl dressed in a frilly leopard print dress (he said it was cute in practice despite sounding tacky in theory) anxiously keeping track of her mother while the mother was looking at the deli counter. All he could think looking at the little girl was, "I want mine! When do I get my baby girl? Is it December yet?"

He's a big softy.

My father was a mean drunk so I don't "get" these commercials, but how is being moved by children not "manly"?

Never camped, been fathered or used AT&T, so I don't know what the hell planet you're all living on.

I almost never cry - but I'll be damned if I didn't cry like a fucking baby at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAxOtp4vDJQ

My dog is a shelter dog, and seeing this makes me want to save ALL the dogs.

I've become immune to the Sarah McLachlan one, though. I don't know why.

I'm a girl and I was never one to feel all squishy about other folk's kids, even on TV, until I had my own. I was watching season 2 of Breaking Bad (yes I'm behind, I don't have cable) the other night and it was the spisode where Jessie goes to get money from this meth-head couple that ripped him off, and instead finds their little red-headed boy at home. He ends up making food for the kid, playing with him and sort of saving him. Anyway, just seeing the cute little red-headed boy living in horrid conditions just KILLED me now that I have my own little red-headed boy.

That AT&T commercial always gets me because my stuffed monkey only sent me the one picture. Of him and a plush giraffe on the beach. Never heard from him again. The bastard.

They are also good cats. Poor little things.

I hate that commercial.

I must say I've absolutely gotten softer since having kids (physically as well, sadly). First, I look at homeless, insane, otherwise disenfranchised people as somebody's son or daughter first. Second, hearing about babies/old people/handicapped people getting hurt/raped/killed always bothered the hell out of me, but now it's damn near unbearable. I also used to pooh-pooh cruelty to animals, but I also think much more now of how helpless and blameless animals are and can't bear that shit either.

As to the ads about kids, was anybody else unable to handle that ad during the Olympics that played "You'll Never Walk Alone" with the moms bringing their kids to early-morning practice?

As to discipline, I almost cry every time my daughter starts crying when either I or my husband are tough on her. She's only three and crumbles at a stern look. It is pretty tough.

Samantha! Buddy!

I just teared up. Just now. Just reading those lyrics. FHUUUUCK!!

But "Mimi" is where we part ways. No can do.

Kids. Go figure. I went from a hell bound speed demon to someone who couldn't drive over the speed limit without a panic attack once my kids were born. But that was several years ago and now I'm rather immune to cute kid commercials because I've survived uncute teenagers. But I freely admit to being touched by a sobbing child wherever I encounter them.

But yeah, that Pedigree commercial is only exceeded by the ASPCA commercial about abused animals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX_RnEyaifU Gets me every time.

I'm forced, as per usual, to agree with esme. I love camping, though my parents never took me and I didn't discover the joys of it until I was in college. But, yeah, if my parents had taken me, the bonding experience from that probably would've made our relationship even stronger.

And it is MANLY. The manliest I've ever felt was waking up earlier and making the first fire of my life without using starter logs. Just leaves, wood I collected myself, and a box of matches. I had coffee and breakfast ready before anyone else woke up, but prior to that I just enjoyed the sunrise, the not-so-quiet silence of a morning in the woods, and the fruits of my manual labor. Later, we used that fire to cook the couple of fish we caught from the nearby lake.

God, I miss camping.

Ugh, it is gut wrenching the sadness and despair you feel for kids once you have some of your own. No one ever told me about this part and I often wonder if I'm going to be strong enough to endure it for what I can only assume will be the rest of my life. I also hear that the worry for your own kids never goes away either. Why didn't anyone ever warn me about this?!? (Because you can't ever know what it's truly like until you're a parent, of course.) I went to a funeral once for a 58 year old woman who died of breast cancer and her elderly mother was one of the attendants. It just killed me know the hurt her mother felt, even that far into life.

To have a child is to give fate a hostage.