It is What it Is

Part 1: My Top 10 TV Tearjjerkers

The other day, over Mexican food, the SO accidentally mistook Scott Bakula for Scott Wolf. While for most couples, this probably wouldn't have been a big deal, being the Quantum Leap fan that I am, this was something I had to correct and assure would never happen again. Somehow, I managed to go from telling him how to never mistake the two again to tearing up over salsa as I recounted the end of the Quantum Leap series and the most pivotal episodes that led to it.

I know.

So, in light of the fact that I've already almost started crying this week just telling the story of Quantum Leap's end, I thought I would take on the topic head-on and present my list of the most tear-jerking TV moments. Warning: there will be lots of spoilers. I also had to split this post in two because, apparently, I have a lot to say on this topic.

10. Alf's Special Christmas

It only seems fair to begin this list where it all began. In 1987, I was a big fan of Alf, the Alien Life Form, who lived with the Tanners. (He always wanted to eat the cat!) During that year's Christmas special, Alf somehow ended up in the hospital with a very sick girl named Tiffany. I think Tiffany had leukemia, and I also think she died or was dying. (This is hard to confirm through any Internet sources. It seems that no one has bothered to do an episode-by-episode breakdown of Alf, and I, for one, am shocked.) The idea of a dying child was too much for me, and I just started sobbing. I cried and cried. I cried so much, my father decided to have a talk with me about the difference between fantasy and reality and moving on.

Clearly, it didn't stick.

Grover, Horton And The Woman I Am Today

A few years ago, I got into a discussion with some friends about our favorite children's books. After naming all of our favorites, I started to wonder if maybe those early reading choices might have been some kind of sign as to the adults we would all grow into.

One friend named a book about a little girl who wanted to go live alone in her own apartment and her own house (even at five), and twenty-five years later, I can't say that I was all that surprised. Is Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day the pick of a future pessimist? Goodnight Moon the sign of a calm, content child? If You Give a Mouse a Cookie the favorite of a suspicious tot, always wondering what request is coming next?

Personally, I had two favorites. The first was There's a Monster at the End of This Book. For those of you haven't read it -- here come the spoilers. Grover from Sesame Street is the main character, and he begins the book by begging the reader not to turn the page because there is a monster waiting at the end of the story. (Hence the title, although that hardly needs to be said. I just feel like typing today.)

I'm Going to Learn How to Fly

I get a lot of questions about my middle name.

“What was that you said?”

“Fain.”

“Fain?”

“Yes, it’s just like ‘rain’ but with an ‘f’ instead of an ‘r.’”

“Fain? F-A-I-N. Really?”

“Yep, Fain.”

“That’s interesting. [Beat.] What’s a Fain?”

When I’m not in a hurry, I explain that it’s a family name. When I am rather rushed, I hope the topic will pass and we can move on to the last four digits of my social security number or my city of birth because this conversation usually occurs when I’m trying to talk to someone about my gas bill or credit card statement, and it hardly seems like the time to discuss my family heritage and naming traditions.

Four Camp Memories* and a Wedding

There are plenty of places I've been that I thought I would never see again. Camp McDowell in Navou, Alabama was definitely one of them. Despite the fact that Camp McDowell is the Episcopal camp in Alabama, and I am, in fact, an Episcopalian from Alabama, one week back in the summer of 1993 was more than enough for me.

There are only three things that I can remember about that week (and the name of my pictured cabin counselor is not one of them, Dawn?):

1. A boy with a mullet had a crush on my friend Leah. He came over to me at the swimming pool one day and asked me if she liked him back. I had to turn him down for her. The next day, we saw the same mullet-ed boy making out with another girl in the pool. It wasn't so much the betrayal that shocked me as much as the seeming lack of hygiene and supervision. All I can remember thinking is, "All of these people in one body of water, and now those two are tonguing each other in the middle of it. This can't be sanitary," plus, "Why doesn't the lifeguard care?"

In Which Laurel Refuses to Leave the Baby Pool

I was not a child who wanted to learn how to swim.

In the first swimming classes my mother ever took me to, every time they made us put our heads under the water, I would go under for about a second, immediately raise my head back up, climb out of the pool and rush towards the nearest dry towel to wipe all of the water off of my face.

(If I had grown up in a time like today when they toss two-year-olds into the pool assuming their natural instincts will take over and cause them to swim or at least dog paddle, I probably would have sunk, at best, and drowned, at worst. Nothing about me was interested in swimming.)

This isn't to say that I didn't like the pool. I just preferred the baby pool, water wings, floaties and any other space in which my feet could be placed firmly on the ground while my head remained free to breathe as much oxygen as I pleased.

Truthfully, I didn't even like the ball pit at Showbiz because I was always a little afraid I might be able to drown in that, too. (What if I became trapped under all those colorful balls and no one could hear my cries for help?) I would walk the perimeter of the ball pit to get to the slide rather than going straight through. On the day I did finally fall in, there were a few minutes of flailing until I realized that I could touch the bottom of that space, too. I calmed down and eventually started to act like something of a normal kid in that token and ticket extravaganza. (You can only imagine what a growing up moment that was for me.)

Nothing my parents could say would get me in the big pool.

A Horse is a Horse, Of Course, Of Course

I think most little girls go through a phase when they're obsessed with horses. I'm not sure what it is about horses that's so fascinating when you have two X chromosomes and are under the age of 10, but there you have it.

At five, my favorite show to watch after school was Black Beauty. (At least, I think that's what it was called. There was a horse. It was black. It may or may not have been the main character, but it came on after Today's Special, and that's what I called it.) I had many My Little Ponies in addition to a score of off-brand plastic horses that I also liked to gallop across the living room floor. I even did my own horse impersonation that involved neighing. (I can only imagine now how annoying that must have been.)

A few years later, my horse obsession still strong but no longer My-Little-Pony-focused, I was a dedicated viewer or Mr. Ed on Nick at Nite. I watched that crazy talking horse every single night, and every single night, I hoped for Wilbur's sake that someone else would just hear that horse talk. Oh, that wily Mr. Ed -- he was a stinker.

Where To Go From Here?

I remember applying to colleges as one of the most stressful periods of my life. It seemed like so much -- my future career, earning potential and even life mate -- hung on the decision I made then. Not to mention the fact that I had tied my self-worth directly to the U.S. News & World Report ranking of the school(s) that accepted me.

Seven days before one round of applications was due, I had an emergency root canal (one the endodontist called the worst he'd seen "in ten years" of oral surgery). Full of painkillers and Valium (I do not do well around the sound of a dentist's drill), I called my best friend and insisted that she drive me to my closed-for-the-Christmas-holidays school, so that I could use the typewriter in the library to put some finishing touches on the common application. 

I was a little obsessed.

The Yard Sale Aficionado

My grandmother is a yard sale pro.

Sure, sure, you might think one of your relatives is a yard sale expert, but trust me when I tell you that your grandparent/aunt/long-known family friend has nothing on my grandmother.

When I was little, my grandmother would give me and each of my sisters $1.00 on Saturday mornings, and we would head out to garage/yard sales. We could spend that dollar however we wanted, but it was the only money we were getting for the day. You might think you had fallen in love with a stuffed unicorn at the first sale, but if it took your whole dollar, you could easily spend the rest of the day full of regret. 

"I like this red teddy bear, but it's a whole fifty cents."

"If you like it, you should probably get it. I heard that we're only hitting up two more sales after this."

Thanks to one great aunt who owned an antiques stall (often full of garage sale finds whose owners didn't know their worth), I can also spot reproductions, silver plate and long-past-their-prime collectibles from an impressive distance.

The True Spirit of Easter

The Mills are a competitive bunch.

We pull out rule books when there's a question of awarding points in board games, we do not believe in do-overs and we never, ever let anyone win. In general, it makes us a tough, formidable lot when it comes to a game of Balderdash or charades. It does not, however, always make it fun to be a kid in our family.

When I say that we don't let anyone win, I really mean anyone. It does not matter if you are three or thirty, if there's a chance to take you in tic-tac-toe, Scrabble or even Candy Land, we seize it. Once during a game of bocce on my great aunt's lawn, I thought that maybe I should change my throws a little so one of the children could win. (I was twenty-eight to their five, six and eight after all. And, yes, they all probably could have taken me on their own, since this particular game did involve throwing and sports stuff, but let's leave that off the table for now.) Then I looked over and realized that my cousin had just knocked his own son's ball out of the competition, and I figured it was our usual "no holds barred" approach to all gaming.  

The New Age

When I was 10 or 11, I went through what can best be described as a "New Age" phase. Now, being a pre-teen from the suburbs with limited means as well as transportation, my "new age phase" probably pales grossly into comparison to anyone else who's ever truly embarked on a different spiritual path. (I never even got to burn incense.) But I did develop a rather unhealthy obsession with The Nature Gallery catalog (crystals and wrapped-dolphin rings) and dream interpretation. (At the time, all I dreamed about were tests that I had forgotten to study for, so it really wasn't worth the seven dream dictionaries, but I suppose bygones are bygones.)  

Also, and I say this with a little more shame, during this time I decided that I really needed to explore my past lives. (Side note: this is what happens to an impressionable young girl left alone with daytime television. Between guests of Phil Donahue and Sally Jesse Raphael and the musings of Shirley Maclaine, I had a lot of unanswered questions.)