Becoming a caricature of my former self

One of my favourite movies is GHOSTWORLD. I can watch that movie over and over and still pee my pants each time with laughter. I can run the lines from that movie as much as I could BREAKFAST CLUB back in the day. I could empathize with both Enid and Seymour's characters so much so that sometimes I thought I was living in their world. (This was all pre-child of course). So just imagine my absolute horror the other day when I experienced a Ghostworld-like moment, but was on the OTHER side of the empathy.

I was trying to cross the street (the very busy, always littered, constantly filled-with ass cracks and crack heads intersection in the area of the city in which I live) with Alice in tow. And she was taking her own sweet time, hopping on one foot across the street, simultaneously shoving Smarties in her mouth that I had bribed her with that morning. Her new running shoes were lighting up as she hopped (yes yes I said shoes THAT LIGHT UP. The goddamn sales woman at the goddamn shoe store trapped me, OK?) and as I tried to drag her across the street I caught the look of one of the drivers waiting at the light as we crossed. It was a mixture of impatience and disgust. And all I could think of was that scene in GHOSTWORLD where a similar incident happens and Seymour (played by the absolutely awesome Steve Buscemi) cries out in frustration: "what, are we moving in slow motion, people!?!" It was the same scene, I kid you not, down to the flashing shoes. And all I could think about was how I was the one with the kid this time, and not the one snorting in laughter along with Enid.

So what did I do? Well, exactly what any other Ghostworld-loving parent would. I smiled at the driver and SLOWED RIGHT DOWN. We were still in front of the car when the light turned red. The woman in the car was beside herself with frantic anger, and it was all I could to not shout the lines back at her.

Yes, it's true. Now, I do move in slow motion.