The (Yellow Brick) Road Not Taken

A few weeks back, I bought a combination belated-birthday/Halloween card for YaYa Ka . . . who had been out of the country on some very big boat.

It was a musical card featuring the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz . It played the Flying Monkeys theme.

I showed it to Baby Ya before I put it in the envelope, and she cringed. To my great surprise, she confessed that she HATES the Wizard of Oz. I, quite frankly, was dumbfounded.

Why would/how could anyone "hate" The Wizard?

It seems she saw the movie as a very young child, and her older siblings had some "fun" . . . pretty much terrorizing her during the flying monkeys sequence. She confided that hearing bits from the movie can literally give her physical symptoms. She's even had nightmares.

Since then, the Yas and I have had great fun teasing her about it. For instance, at the William Mangum signing last weekend, there were chairs in the gallery that had monkeys on the upholstery. I made an exagerated point of asking Baby Ya if the chairs made her uncomfortable.

She responded to her Queen with an unprintable. It was wicked and rhymes with witch.

This after I stood in line with her to get an extra "Ribbon and Bow".

The green men and women walking around at ReniFest kinda freaked her out.

Periodically, in her presence, we Yas have broken into Oz songs - or hummed the monkey/winkie soldier themes.

Tonight, The Wizard is on TNT in all of its glorious Technicolor. I am on-call down East, but I have called Baby Ya several times with updates on the movie . . . especially the blow-by-blow on the flying monkeys scene (the scarecrow really got the wrong end of that deal).

More unprintables. Albeit with hysterical laughter.

There's a method to the madness. It's called desensitization therapy.

We'll get her sleeping like a baby in those ruby slippers yet.

We're good witches, you see;)