Nuts

It started at Christmas. It was a simple airing of a ubiquitous holiday special that seems to have instigated it. Ever since then the obsession has grown. Who would have thought an animated, bald headed kid named Chuck could inspire such a habit?

A Charlie Brown Christmas is to blame. The Girl saw it and demanded more. So her jones was fulfilled with It's the Great Pumpkin, and then the Valentine's Day, and the Thanksgiving, and then the holiday-less You're a Good Sport. This weekend added You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown to the repertoire. It never ends. Over and over and over again they run in the dvd player. When one ends the Girl demands yet another, or a replay of the one that just ended. It is ghastly.

Even the Boy has reached his limit: "Good Grief," he shrieks when she requests yet another play, the phrase itself evidence of his own overexposure. She is never done with it.

She has taken to hauling a blanket around, telling us when she grows up she wants to be Linus. A kid who has never felt a profound attachment to any object now drags a filthy blanket hither and fro, unable to part with it.

What she gleans from it is beyond me. Peanuts was never truly a children's comic, its little observations better absorbed and reflected upon by those with a more experience under their belts than kids. Yet there she sits, motionless, absorbing it all, occasionally laughing.

Her television time-limits, and our stamina, are the only thing that keeps her from a 24/7 cycle with Lucy, Chuck and the Red-headed girl. I'm sure it will pass but for the moment, well, maybe dvds can wear out.