Good night and good luck...at Toys R Us

Michael and I went to the movies tonight, and as you may have guessed from my title, we saw Good Night and Good Luck. It was so great. I am trying to get it approved to show to my sophomores next semester. They'll probably be bored by it, but I think it is worth showing, especially in our History of Journalism unit, where they learn a bit about Edward R. Murrow. It was interesting. At the end Murrow is shown accepting some type of Lifetime Achievement award. He makes a speech about how if we use television only to entertain, then it is just wires and pictures in a box (I'm paraphrasing here...). He's probably turning over in his grave right now. What an amazing story. If I had more time, I'd like to learn more about jazz and Edward R. Murrow.
I finally did some Christmas shopping today. Rosa and Gianna were first on my list, and that meant a trip to hell, aka Toys 'R Us. The nearest one is on Western Ave. not far from my house. Western is kind of a wasteland. I once heard a stat that Western Ave is one of the longest city streets in the country and the people with it as an address represent a wider range of socio-economic classes and ethnicities than any single street in America. Well, I don't know how accurate that is, but this particular Toys R' Us sure supports that stat. You'll see a 2005 Mercedes Benz S class parked next to a 1996 teal Ford tempo (my first car) on any given day of the week. The owners of these two cars have nothing in common except one important thing: They both have one or more annoying child who will soon be next to ME in line at Toys R Us, screaming, whining and throwing a Diana Ross-sized temper tantrum over some toy or another that he/she didn't get. I'm telling you; I saw a little girl thrashing around in a shopping cart, slapping her mom's hand away as she made feeble attempts to put a hat on the girl because, after all, it is about 15 below out there. So the mom gave up. Her brilliant approach was to just STAND there and let her daughter flip her fucking lid in the shopping cart in front of everyone in the store. Meanwhile, I waited in line 5 feet from this child imagining her in my class someday, throwing this same temper tantrum at my desk over getting an A- on an assignment. No one else seemed the least bit shocked by this display. That's probably because they, being parents, all deal with it everyday. I, being a single person, could not help but be appalled. The child appeared to be possessed by the devil. Her face was red and she was drooling and spitting like a beast. The words "birth control birth control birth control" marched through my head like soldiers on their way to battle. It was awful. I got in and out of there as quickly as possible, but it was easily the most stressful 48 minutes of my day. I am, however, on break now, so the only other minutes of my day that rivaled those in terms of stress level were the 4 that I spent figuring out which scarf to wear- the blue one or the off-white one.
The good news is that, amid all that chaos in Toys R Us, I did manage to buy Rosa's and Gianna's gifts; I even got a little something for Annie's babies, Declan and Junie. Since I have no children, I'm not entirely sure I got anything good; I just know the age on the box roughly matches the age of the recipient. All I need to know is that they won't choke on it. I was amazed at how cheap things are at that place. I bought a ton of gifts for under $100. I'll try not to think about the wages of the people who assembled them.
Well, I'm off to bed now. Good night and good luck....