Popple Quiz

Pop Quiz: Rank the enthusiasm, from greatest to least, of the following four individuals for a Saturday night viewing of Beauty & the Beast:

a 30 year old male

a 28 year old female

a 2 year old female

a 24 year old female

If you put the 2 year old at the top of your list, you would be wrong. If you put the 30 year old male at the bottom of your list, your correctness is debatable, but I'm gonna go ahead and say you're wrong on that one too.

Lynn called me on Friday and suggested we have dinner together Saturday night. Totally, awesome. Saturday afternoon she called me and said, "I think I'm gonna order Chinese, do you like Chinese?" LOVE Chinese. Then, "Hey, could you bring over Beauty & the Beast?" Soulmate! And as if this transaction could not get any better, I explained, "Of course, but it's a VHS, do you still have a VCR?" Sheepish laugh, followed by, "Yeah, we do actually." Amazing. I was sincerely going to offer to bring over B & the B before she ever asked, then she suggested Chinese, and then!, she told me that she's still down with old school technology, which, if you don't know by now, is the way to this girl's heart for sure.

When I showed up to Lynn's, her daughter Claire was in her diaper and my first question was, "Don't you wish you could walk around without pants on?" Well we got Claire into her pants to go pick up our Chinese, and as we pulled back into the garage Lynn's husband Devin pulled in at the same time. The four of us had our cashew chicken and chicken and vegetables, Hawaiian punch. And Claire, may I say, put some chicken away. I think, protein speaking, the girl ate more than me. Then during B&B she had a banana, but I am getting ahead of myself. I'm just sayin', good work, Girlfriend.

During dinner we had confession time, in which Devin explained his long time love for Beauty & the Beast (he might, um, be a little upset with me for posting this, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there). He also told us about his Popple toy (now inherited by Claire), that he attained for bravely and accidentally having his head shaven bald in the first grade, which I deemed the best Popple story I have heard to date. Needless to say, good bonding time with Lynn & Co., and we haven't even watched the movie yet.

We popped in our good old 80s block of plastic and let the previews roll. Devin brought his after-dinner PB&J downstairs, Lynn gathered blankets and pillows, Claire wandered, Bailey lazily lounged on the couch. The opening music began. The narrator began to speak. And Lynn ran to the tv and slid to the carpet to pause the VCR, because we weren't ready yet. "It's the best part!" she yelled. "Rewind it!" Devin declared. And so we settled. And rewound. And pressed play once more. And it was glorious. "There goes the baker with his tray like always..." We quoted, we sang, we pre-quoted (i.e., during the opening scene where Belle is in the bookshop, you get excited about a line that will come up in an hour, and excitedly shout out, "with sharp, cruel fangs!").

Lynn's frantic pausing of the video for proper appreciation of the narrator's deep bravado voice was one of my favorite moments of the evening, for sure. I also loved the fact that the entire time Devin kept asking Claire to sit down so she wasn't blocking the tv. Poor Claire was bored, and these crazy adults were trying to get her interested in a movie intended for her, that we were instead salivating over in all its musically animated Disney glory.

I pointed out my favorite scene (the snow/library scene), and explained how I love it because it involves books and snow. I pretended I had a green and red dress and a library with ladders and angels on the ceiling. Devin made fun of me for wanting a monster to lead me into a library.

There was one more moment, and I can't decide if it is tied with Lynn's pausing, or cuter. When the beast first appeared on the screen, Claire declared, "Puppy!" and Lynn laughed her adorable, infectious giggle. "Yes, that's a big puppy, Claire."