Trolltally Strange

I wrote this post a while ago, but in the interest of Christmas and toys and such...here it is now!

Right now I'm watching a YouTube video of a screechy person opening troll doll toys.  I'm sitting with my three-year-old niece, and this is one of her favorite "shows."  It's not a show.  It's a person opening toys.  The voice is...how can I describe this?  Think of the high-pitched voice that people use when they talk to babies, but then raise it another octave, make it way too excited, and then put it on the living room surround sound.

"THE NEW TROLL DOLLS ARE OUT! AAAEEEEEEEE! WHICH ONE WILL WE OPEN?  OOOO!  LET'S LOOK AT THIS FASHION GIRL, WHO HUGS ALL OF HER FRIENDS EVERY HOUR ON THE HOUR!"

I'm sorry, are the excessive capital letters annoying you?  I promise it sounds a thousand times worse if you're listening to it.

Also, whose brilliant idea was it to make a character who hugs all of her friends every hour on the hour?  If anyone tries to hug me at three o'clock in the morning, they're probably going to get punched or kicked.  Ask my husband if you don't believe me.

Hold on, we have a new toy:

"WOWIE ZOWIE!  LOOK AT THIS NEW NAKED GLITTER TROLL!"

To be fair, if my skin was glitter I would probably be naked all the time too.

I'm supposed to be getting work done right now, but I can't tear my eyes off of this spectacle.  My face is a mix or horror and intrigue.  This video, my friends, has almost a million views.  A MILLION.  Apparently this is a whole channel dedicated to buying toys and opening them.  This culture of three-year-old consumerism is completely new to me.

Oh no, the one year old is trying to plug the laptop cord into his mouth.  Gotta go.

In case you want to view the horror for yourself, I'm putting the link here.  Warning: if you open this at work, make sure no one else is around.  Everyone who hears you watching this video is going to think you're a freak.

CLICK HERE IF YOU DON'T VALUE YOUR EARS

The Well-Trained Dog and the Living Cardinal

How much do you know about grouse hunting?

If your answer is, "What the heck is a grouse?" then you are in the vast majority of humanity.  I was you once.  Then I met my husband.  Now I'm married with a hunting dog and a coop full of training pigeons.  Life comes at you fast.

**Note** In case you care, a grouse is a bird.  It's about the size of a chicken.  Also, since we get this question a lot, no our pigeons do not die in the course of training.  They're homing pigeons, so once the dog finds them in a field then we launch them into the air with a pigeon launcher (yes, this is a real thing), and they fly home.  Okay.  Glad we covered the logistics.  On to my story.

Yesterday I tried to get our dog Ruby to come in from the back yard.  I called her, but she wouldn't come.  I went outside to investigate, and she was on point.  This means she was frozen in place, pointing out a bird for a non-existent hunter to shoot.  I think it was a cardinal or something.  Definitely not a food bird.  I didn't take a picture, but here's what our type of dog looks like when she's on point:

My husband wasn't home, and I couldn't remember what he usually says to make Ruby break point.  I tried a few things:

"At ease!"

"Un-point!"

"You're free!"

"GREEN LIGHT!"

Nothing worked.  She moved only her eyeballs to look at me like, "Hello...shoot the bird..."

She's fifty pounds, so I wasn't about to go pick up her frozen-in-place body and haul her inside (on second thought, it would have been hilarious if she tried to hold the pose while I was carrying her!).  Suddenly, I had the perfect idea.

I went inside and pulled out our Wild West board game called Bang.  There's a cap gun in that game that's really loud.  I walked back outside and tried to call Ruby in again.  She stayed on point (shocker).

I pointed the gun in the general direction of the bird and shot.  BANG!  Ruby was satisfied and immediately ran to me happily like, "Did you get it?  Wasn't that awesome?!"  Whatever, dog.  I probably gave the poor bird a tiny heart attack.

Now our neighbors probably think we're the nutter house.  Well, that ship probably sailed long ago.  They're simply marking this up as one more reason to move:  "Hey, Maude! Crazy chick next door is shooting cardinals!  Did you call on that house over on the other side of town yet?"

IT WAS A CAP GUN, PEOPLE.  NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS BLOG POST.