Super Mario Brothers Movie

Noon-ish

I'm spending my Sunday morning over at X-Entertainment reading a review of the Super Mario Brothers Movie and a history of the Crash Dummies when I see a picture of one of the many Alf tie-in plush toys that were available back in the day.  I was reminded of a time my mother had me along while she was shopping for a birthday present for the kid of our next door neighbour.  We were friendly like that.  My mother and the mother over there even had a little intercom thing to communicate between homes without actually having to go next door or pick up the telephone.  One button instead of seven, you know?  Anyway, here's me and my mother scouring the toy aisle of whatever second-rate department store was the main draw of that mall that everyone's familiar with.  It's the kind that gives you a thrill as a child just for being a mall but actually has just about nothing of interest for anyone over seven or under fifty. This same mall would be the cause of great anguish in later years when the comic relief of my high-school gang bought, at that mall, the very same Naughty By Nature t-shirt I had just got for Christmas that I thought was the coolest garment ever worn by man, woman, or child.  Bad enough that Mr. Comic Relief and me had the same shirt, but out of nowhere I was forced into a universe governed by the knowledge that I owned and had worn a shirt available at that mall.  But I digress.  Me, Mom, toy aisle.  My mother is the absolute worst planner in the world when it comes to gift-giving.   Gifts are always bought at the last minute, always in a big panic about whether we're going to have it ready for whatever the occasion is later that day that we're buying the gift for.  I recall many sibling birthdays spent speeding about the city on a quest for the elusive toy my sister has asked for that year.  Later years would see a new tradition of simply receiving enough money to buy yourself whatever you asked for that year.  Then no present, just a cake and a card.  Then you just stopped having your birthday acknowledged.  In this afternoon panic I would come to know well, my mother thought out loud about everything there was to look at, trying to come up with that perfect something to give to the infant son of her buddy next door.  I'd already had my fill of torturing myself looking at wrestling dolls and whatever other toys I was interested in at the time, and I was ready to leave.  My mind was already strategizing the battle to be fought at the candy/toy vending machines at the store's exit and in an attempt to hurry along the conclusion of this trip, I grabbed one of the newly released Alf dolls from the shelf and suggested that it was the perfect gift for young Bradley (who was turning two).  I believe that my rationale was that I would never have this doll and if the kid had it next door, at least I would get to play with it, perhaps even end up 'borrowing' it into my possession or somehow arranging the circumstances for the kid to forget it at our house.  My mother wasn't sold on the idea.  She wasn't convinced that the kid would even know what the hell Alf was.   I pulled some story out of my ass about the kid and me being somewhere in the presence of this very same doll and upon my asking young Bradley if he recongnized the thing, this kid in diapers smiled and triumphantly shouted "ALF!!" with his eyes aglow.  Well, that was just the sort of story that would naturally pull at the heartstrings of any mother and we were swiftly on our way to the check-out and back in the car in no time flat.  If I'm not mistaken, my mother had to repeatedly ask me to stop taking the Alf doll out of the bag and to leave it alone.  Fast-forward to Bradley's birthday party that evening.  There's me, my sister, my parents, Bradley and his brother Ryan, their parents, and a few of their relatives.  This bewildered child swimming in a sea of brightly colored torn paper, looking clueless in a "...but hey, who am I to complain?" sort of way, has already blazed through a pricey mountain of licensed crap and is about to open his present from our family.  I somehow knew that my plan was about to back-fire and when Bradley ripped the paper off of the Alf doll and stared at it with overt confusion, one of the mothers asked him if he knew who this character was.  He shook his head.  My mother exposed the plot when she told everyone gathered that I had provided false information regarding the recognizability factor of the Alf franchise as it relates to the next-door family's children.  I spent the rest of the afternoon slightly embarrassed and I almost wish that I would have been clever enough to put my hands beside my face with my palms facing the sky, making a half-smiling, half-frowning thing that would make all the adults laugh and go "Oh that Sean!"  I never did get my mitts on that Alf doll and I don't think Bradley ever played with it even once.