Well, here we go again. Another “tweenie” show that’s gonna cost me oh…I don’t know…I’ll roughly guess…x3 our national deficit.
You see - being the Dad of a female “tweenie” (one who is at a stage in life between being a kid and teenager) means you are automatically at the mercy of the almighty marketing god known as Diz Knee. Just by the mere act of having a child means YOU TOO will fall prey to his rule! And make no mistake my childless “that won’t happen to me when I have kids” resistor -- for Lord Diz Knee scoffs at your naivety. FOOLS I say!
Forget not that Lord Diz-Knee is a patient god too. Why he barely reaches a stage of giddiness when perusing through hospital birth announcements over a cup of coffee in the morning - all-the-while watching his kingdom grow for HE knows! He knows the first few years of child rearing are joyous and bubbly, fun and wonderful! - A life full of vibrant exploratory functions!
Then - it happens…in a moment of weakness you decide you need to get a few things done or maybe your tired and need just a short break. You plop Jr. down in front of the TV and from high above Lord Diz Knee cracks a huge smile “only for a few moments” you foolishly think to yourself and then…BAM! He‘s got you.
Yeah, a few brave groups of Diz Knee vigilantes have cropped up from time-to-time eliminating Television as-a-whole from their households, but Lord Diz Knee merely snickers. For he knows what TV cannot do - friends at school, radio, and the internet will do - and that’s squash the resisting parental cells like ants on a sidewalk.
It’s true - resistance IS futile. Take me for example; Lord Diz Knee’s top subject General Hilary Duff announces a show at Van Andel last year. Night of the show my wife decides my son and I will be driving her and my daughter downtown to the arena. Plan is simple - Daughter and wife go to General Duff Show - Dad and Son go to arcade. What follows is a plot twist filled with so much terror…a fate so horrifying…I…ok…I’m balling as I write this…it all happened so fast!……ahem….I’m ok now to continue -
My Son and I escorted the girls into the building to make sure tickets were in etc…While at the ticket window my wife remarked how it’s too bad my Son and I couldn’t join them for this sold out show. While winking at my Son I assuredly remark (rather stupidly now that I recall it) “Well by golly if there were any tickets left, you can bet your sweet bejesus Josh and I would be in there with bells on…heh..heh..heh!”.
Lord Diz Knee does not take kind to the mocking of his empire - for it was at this moment the mysterious woman from behind the ticket window glass bellowed in a devilishly low voice “Well folks, we just opened up some front row seating....HA…HA….HA…..ha….ha!!!!!!! Alright, maybe she didn’t quite bellow devilishly low and the mocking laughter might not have been part of the real story…but it sure seemed like it at the time.
What happened next might as well have been a scene out of classic western movie because as fast as any gunslinger in the old west could draw and fire his six-shooter, my wife, in one single solid motion (and with dizzying speed) withdrew her credit card from her purse - and now I could be exaggerating here - but I thought I saw her spin it around her index finger several times before she slammed it down under the glass partition and exclaimed “We’ll take four!”. The Lord Diz Knee co-conspirator behind the counter being a female herself (could sense some sort of loud male protested rebuttal was about to ensue) quickly swiped the card, spun the card several times around her own index finger for good measure (or just to show off) and fired it back toward my wife’s purse where the card (obviously exhausted by the velocity of the transaction) nestled firmly back in her wallet.
Total time elapsed: 3 and a half seconds…
I struggled to firmly grasp what had just happened, replaying the episode (in slow motion mind-you) but to no avail. All I could muster was a weak “um…ok” after I heard my wife’s command of “lets go”. As we walked toward our front row seats to the Hillary Duff concert I glanced over at my son who was trying draw his own conclusion to the horrible action that had just transpired but alas…poor kid, never saw it coming. Sadly I remember his eyes looking to me for some sort of logical explanation, but it was not to be…for all I could muster was a defeated shrug. To this day, I still see tremors strike his body when the sounds of Hillary Duff waft through our household from my daughters CD player.
So it is with a heavy heart my dear listeners I ask you to pray to the gods (any god but Diz Knee that is) that as I stand here and read the announcemnet of another Lord Diz Knee product / Admiral Hannah Montana - announcing a concert at Van Andel in December, that you pray me and my boy to contract an awful sickness on this upcoming concert date. Pray that we both be stricken with illness so grave we can barely rise from our beds for this suffering is mere childs-play compared to sitting in a huge arena surrounded by 12,000 screeching tweenie girls!
Amen