Mary Envy

The other day I was feeling rather crappy so I decided to dig around on youtube and see if I could find some movies I hadn’t seen in a while. I ended up finding Mary Poppins. So for the first time since I was... I don’t know how old, I watched the whole thing. I absolutely loved it. As if I could hate anything where Julie Andrews is singing. The thing is, watching it now was so completely different from watching it when my age was still a single digit.

I don’t think that as a kid I would have understood half of it as it was intended to be. The whole votes for women thing and the whole subservience to man thing wouldn’t have made an impact. Although, the one universal and ageless truth I would have understood is that it’s okay to like men individually, but as a whole, they’re stupid. I didn’t say it, it’s in Mary Poppins... can’t blame me. That is such a bad cop out. I also would have found the whole sexist thing far less amusing as a kid. I love it in older shows when the man of the house thinks he’s completely in control and then some woman comes along and totally owns him. Lovely.

The downside of it was that I now know enough history to be like “oh that is so wrong”. And even though I try not to let my brain ruin it, it does. Stupid brain. The whole chimney sweep thing would have had me in awe as a kid, the singing and dancing. And then I read Blake’s poems on the subject. Through class discussion, I learned that chimney sweeps were poor, young, children who typically died by age seven due to black lung or any number of other health issues related to being in a chimney. Pft... Bert loves being a chimney sweep. Riiiight. My prof actually quoted from Mary Poppins while explaining this. It was fun because he broke out in song and dance for about three seconds. But yeah, permanently blackened skin and lungs are no laughing matter. Seriously. Now I’ve ruined it for you. Sorry.

Aside from all that my Mary Poppins envy was renewed. I wish I could fly around with an umbrella. All mine do is stop my head from getting wet while the rest of me gets soaked because it’s raining sideways. Yes, sideways. People have claimed that a broom would suit me. Well, I’ve tried and that doesn’t work either. Plus, I like the umbrella better. Everyone has a broom, only one person has a talking umbrella. Besides, it would cut my commute to the bus stop in half. NO! It would make the bus a thing of the past! Excellent! I guess the only problem would be if it’s rainy. I wouldn’t want to be a lightning rod. I have enough problems without that. And I’m pretty sure you can only survive electrocution so many times. I’m already at once. Alas, none of that matters, for Mary I am not.

I’d also like to be able to clean by snapping my fingers. Friggin’ Mary Poppins has all the luck. Oh well...

Lauren.