The DAN ZONE

This would be embarrassing if it didn’t make for such a good story. So this past weekend, my survival horror video game partner, we’ll call her ‘J,’ was over in celebration of her b-day and so there was the obligatory ‘take you out to dinner for your birthday’ situation. I was even willing to sit through the torture of a sushi restaurant since she loves it and I can order like cooked chicken or something normal and parasite free, but we downgraded, and luckily me, she and my partner Danny ended up at a seafood dive that actually cooks its fish. I, of course, ordered a burger and fries. They, of course, ordered fricking lobster and clams or something slimy like that. I spent the whole time trying to protect my Burger King-esque meal from flying lobster flesh. Blech.

I also had to keep my eyes diverted from the limb tearing and flesh sucking feast. Gross. I mean, if you have to eat an animal, let someone else do the slaughtering so that it comes out in a cute little patty on a bun for you. Well, as a result of keeping my eyes closed to all the disemboweling going on around me, I stuck a ketchup covered French fry in my mouth, bit down hard…and saw stars! Okay, maybe they were more like starfish. Somehow, I managed to shove my own ketchup covered finger into my own mouth with my fry and sank my own teeth into my own tender flesh. This has to be the most heinous act ever. I could not BELIEVE the pain. Amazingly, I did not break the skin, but the throbbing was so bad it led to yet another distraction from enjoying my burger and fries. And then my mind got to wandering, thinking of the horrible possibility of piercing the flesh with teeth.

I looked at J and said, “You know, I am in SO much pain from biting my finger—“

“That you can’t imagine how bad it would hurt if you were eaten by zombies,” she finished matter-of-factly.

“Yes!” I cried.

“I knew you were going to say that,” she replied. “That’s my worst nightmare.”

This was a straight up serious conversation for us, so imagine our surprise when my partner Danny starts laughing and rolling his eyes at our discussion.

Some day he’ll learn. He enjoys occasionally stumbling over to me while I’m sitting on the living room couch with his arms raised in front of him and groaning “Brains. BRAINS!” I keep telling him I’m not like those wooses in the movies who can’t bring themselves to blow away their loved ones even though they’ve become ravenous zombies. I keep warning him, “If you cry zombie too often, someday it’s going to be YOUR brains, and they’re going to be splattered all over your nice 46” flat screen television over there.”

Fricking zombie skeptics.

Having almost 40 years of experience watching horror films (I’m 41 and have been watching some form of horror films since I was like 5) I grew up on what are now considered ‘slow burners’: horror films that have about an hour or so of characterization, plot development, and a snail’s pace building of tension, headed for some sort of horrific climax, most often only hinted at in the promos. In essence, this was pretty much the norm for a majority of horror films for decades. This formula not only drew you in while causing your fear to mount, it also prevented an early climax—the premature delivery of the money shot, be it the reveal of the horrific monster previously hidden in shadow or the first drop of bloodshed. Many movies fit into this mold, including Psycho, 2000 Maniacs, The House on Haunted Hill (original), Homicidal, Black Christmas, Night of the Living Dead… I could go on and on.

Naturally, many of these movies gave you short spurts of thrills early on to grab your attention, but after that, it was just little dribbles of fear that carried you along. Not knowing when something was going to happen is what kept you watching. The anticipation of seeing what all the hype was about while actually being tentative about finding out was what created the intense horror movie experience. I mean, after being told that people were puking all over their popcorn while watching The Exorcist, when you sat down to see it for yourself, you definitely weren’t glancing at the clock every five minutes wondering when things were going to get exciting. There was actually a sense of relief that things were somewhat calm, because you were dreading the worst. But that calm was a false calm. You knew it was just the calm before the storm, so you welcomed the dialogue and level of sanity as you were supplied with exposition and character development. When you were finally slammed with the true level of repulsive moments the film had to offer, you were pretty much left damaged for life.

That all began to change, I guess in the 80s after the slasher phenomenon took hold and movie studios began calling for higher body counts and more blood, as if that were a substitute for chills, atmospher and suspense. Take, for instance, the Friday the 13^th series. The original film, released in 1980, had a body count of 9 (four more bodies than in the original slow burning slasher Halloween two years earlier). In 1989, when Jason took Manhattan, the body count was 19…almost double. And let’s face it. In 1980, Friday the 13^th was considered a ‘shocker’ and was actually a scary experience for filmgoers (despite it just being on old lady doing all the killings). By the time Jason took to the streets of New York, it was all a big joke, and he was even facing off against smart-mouthed street hoods with boom boxes. Ooh! Scary! This was pretty much the dark period of horror, which had become a farce, a joke; the audience was in on it, cheering for the evil rather than the well-being of the disposable characters. Then came Scream, which initially celebrated the dawning of the age of the slasher. While predictable and formulaic in terms of slashers (because it was mocking them), Scream was also suspenseful, heart-pounding, and loaded with likeable characters. A barrage of copycat films soon followed, and horror quickly promised to lose its foothold again.

Unfortunately, in most cases, the conclusion studios looking to make money off horror movies came to was that what ‘scared’ people was brutality, extreme violence, and body counts. It was a logical theory based on the success of the resurgence of slasher films. It’s what the latest generation was growing up on. And it’s the reason why we are about to witness the seventh sequel of the Saw series, why kids in the theaters were laughing at even the most grotesque moments of The Exorcist when it was re-released, and why The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is now called out as being ‘overrated,’ ‘laughable,’ and ‘boring’ on message boards.

The real saving grace for the horror genre in the past decade was the infusion of foreign horror films into the American mainstream, beginning with Asian horror. Other countries explored new horror devices rather than recycling the formula that had become so popular in the U.S. The impact of these films on the horror conscience was so strong that they started getting English version remakes, the most successful being The Ring, followed by The Grudge. The funny thing is, what you’ll notice if you watch The Ring is that, in essence, it is a major slow burner. After a fantastic shocker of an opening (in true Scream style), The Ring really turns into much more of a suspense/mystery film, and it is not until the end that we get the most pay off from a horror perspective—but that one taste of it at the beginning is what keeps us glued to the screen. Unfortunately, the whole girl in a white dress with her long black hair combed over her face thing was exploited like slashers had been, and before long, the string of films with this theme were throwing her in your face, all up in the camera so often that she was no longer frightening.

But we have definitely seen somewhat of a revisiting of the slow burner. Eli Roth did it with Cabin Fever, and wouldn’t you know, many people say the film is crap. Rather than being about people getting stripped, tortured and killed for exploitative purposes (as his follow-up, Hostel¸ was) it is an exploration of morality and humanity as friends turn against each other when faced with catching a spreading disease…slowly but surely. And of course, I’ve posted a whole blog about him, but director Ti West is mastering the old school art of slow burners, with mixed reviews from current horror lovers. The Roost and The House of the Devil are two of the creepiest films I’ve seen in years. The characters are slowly immersed in something horrific and unexplained, and we’re right there with them, our hearts in our throats as we wonder What the fuck is going on here?

And that question pretty much sums up the slow burner. It’s the “what the fuck is going on here” question begging to be answered that keeps you watching…if you have patience and relish the prolonging of the terror. If you prefer immediate gratification without any variation of ups, down, slow, fast, you’ll be satiated by modern films that start you right at the highest frenetic peak, providing you with a “this is exactly what the fuck is going on and is going to continue to go on non-stop for the next hour and a half.”

If you know that reference, then you are truly a Frogger junky like myself. Me and a couple of friends spent a majority of the decade from 2001 – 2009 playing the numerous modernized versions of Frogger for everything from Playstation One to the Gamecube, getting into the whole 20-year anniversary of the 80s. Yet, throughout all those releases, never once was there the inclusion of the original arcade game (while the original Pac Man landed on about a dozen Pac Man remakes).

I thought that had all changed when I discovered Konami Classics Volume 1 for the Xbox 360. I FINALLY just got an Xbox 360. It took my friend long enough to cave and spring for it as a gift for me, but I guess I should forgive her since she was out of work for a year and purchased it for me like the day she found out she actually was about to be hired into a full-time position again.

So, when I hooked up my Xbox 360 to my HD television with and HDMI cable and digital optical audio cable for full 5.1 surround, the first game I popped into the system to experience all the technological advances it has to offer gamers was…Frogger.

That’s right. I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to at last experience the original classic arcade game on a gaming console. So I popped in Konami Classics Volume 1, navigated the menus past the other two pesky ‘classics’—Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Super Contra—and prepared to leap into Frogger.

But…wait. This Frogger looks DIFFERENT. The general board layout is the same, but the graphics…they’ve been…updated. And the music—this isn’t the Frogger theme song! WTF??? I hit pause, flipped through the game manual, then Googled the hell out of this game. Sure, I found numerous places where it was mentioned that Konami Classics Volume 1 offers you the opportunity to play the games on the disc with their original graphics or modern ‘enhanced’ graphics. Well guess what. EVERY single person on the internet is a liar. Except me. Because I’m here to tell you the truth. Frogger is the ONLY game on the disc that absolutely does NOT give you a choice between original and enhanced graphics. In fact, it doesn’t even mention that it is subjecting you to enhanced graphics. It just slaps them onto your screen after tricking you with a title screen that looks very much like the one you would have peered at while dropping your quarters into the arcade machine in 1982. I’ve been bamboozled, ribbit! (I mean…dammit….)

Before I even get into this week’s episode, I have to just comment on everybody being atwitter about a Tweet put out there by ex-American Idol castoff Elliott Yamin. This is pretty much what he said:

“Can someone please xplain what the big deal is with #Glee ?..what’s so entertaining about watchin actors lip sync 4 an hour?..I don’t get it…oh…so…this is what really goes on in HS nowadays?…kids walk around lip syncin 2 auto tuned radio garbage? ..not hatin,just dont get it”

Well, for starters, I have to say, this is why I don’t Tweet—because I much prefer the ability to actually stay as close to English grammar as possible, so blogging allows me to re-read what I’ve written and at least correct the occasional typo. Plus, rather than the knee-jerk reaction to stimulus that Tweeting is (the kind that leaves you looking all jerk, without the knee), blogging offers you time to RATIONALLY think about what you’re saying before you say it.

As for Yamin’s comments, doesn’t Elliott expect people to watch and like his lip synced videos on MTV Hits??? Judging a show simply as the one with ‘the lip syncing high school kids’ (which many haters on message boards do with this show) is incredibly shallow for someone like Yamin, who claims to be an artist. As an artist, he should recognize the aristry that goes into the show–there’s a whole lot more than just lip syncing going on here. The writing is complex, there’s characterization, human emotions and social experiences are explored, and the humor is fantastic even if not everyone’s cup of tea (all humor is subjective—how else would Russell Brand keep getting jobs?). Most importantly, despite lip syncing during filming (something that’s been done in movie musicals since their inception–is  West Side Story a piece of garbage?), just like Elliott, these kids are going into recording studios to actually sing this stuff first, where there may be some fine-tuning of vocals, just as there is with every recording artist. But on top of that, these kids are learning lines, acting and emoting, spending hours learning choreography, getting fit into costumes–yeah, sure. This show is just a bunch of hacks being autotuned for a living…

But on to last night’s episode, a perfect demonstration of why this show is loved and appreciated by so many. The show was all about the struggles of being who we are, saying what we feel, and the masks we wear to hide the painful truths and our own insecurities. Musically, it was all brilliantly captured through the music and personas of Lady GaGa and Kiss (who would ever have imagined this kind of combination?). Sure, the girls’ (and gay’s) performance of “Bad Romance” was fun, and the boys’ performance of Kiss’s “Shout it Out Loud” a hot mess. But a song like “Poker Face” took on a totally different meaning when being sung as a duet between Lea Michele and her TV mom Idina Menzel—revealing that while the two women were claiming they weren’t ready to be mother and daughter, what they were feeling inside, behind their ‘poker faces’ was a totally different story. And how brilliant of the writers to pull back on a story that seemed to be propelling forward way too fast. That’s a not-uncommon practice on the show, which often feels like it’s giving you the money shot way too fast, but then gives the ‘predictable’ storyline a complicated twist that is far being resolved. Sure, Rachel and her mom have called off a hugs and kisses reunion for now, because that would be too easy. Instead, the show is opting for realism. This is going to be a slow burn.

And then we have the harshly realistic tension that has arisen between Kurt and Finn, even if the circumstances are kind of ridiculous with their parents deciding to move the two families in together and force the classmates to share a single bedroom as if they are brothers. For starters, if Kurt’s house is so much bigger than Finn’s house with two and a half bathrooms, why the frick do Kurt and Finn have to SHARE a room—the basement, no less? What exactly is the rest of the house comprised of? A kitchen, living room, dad’s bedroom and two and a half bathrooms? But, whatever. Because the results of this new living arrangement are painfully real—especially on Finn’s part. And my only problem with the whole storyline is that it’s so unbalanced. Two teenage boys have to share a room—one straight, one gay. Why is it that the straight boy is the only one who has to learn to deal with it? When Kurt makes their space look like something out of The King and I, Finn flips out and calls some of the décor ‘faggy.’ Kurt’s dad goes ballistic and makes a heart-wrenching speech about expecting more from Finn and the true homophobia that using that word reveals in a person. Kurt, just like most gays, is so used to hearing the word, often simply as a synonym for ‘not cool,’ so he tries to defend Finn’s usage. But in the end, it is Finn who is pretty much told he just has to deal and accept that he’s a homophobe. But that’s not reality, and that’s not really the full extent of Finn’s side of the story, which is where the writing became one sided.

The fact is, in high school, everyone is uncomfortable—with their bodies, with their sexuality, with the thought of changing in front of their peers in the locker room. All the gay guys I know were the ones who were incredibly uncomfortable with stripping down to their undies in front of other boys. And let’s be honest. What straight teenage boy wouldn’t be uncomfortable in an intimate setting like sharing a bed and bathroom if he knew the boy he is sharing with is gay AND has a crush on him? Finn’s feelings are perfectly natural and he has every right to express them, even if they way he expressed it wasn’t particularly PC. And it doesn’t help that Kurt is so stalkerish in his feelings for Finn. It would be more realistic if Kurt was awkward and uncomfortable around Finn rather than trying to devise a plot to get them to be roomies. The whole plot makes his character seem way too calculated and, you know, like the stereotypical gay predator. Considering the majority of the creators behind the show probably ARE gay, it’s surprising that they would paint him this way and then berate the straight character for being an ‘insensitive,’ homophobic bully. It feels to me like they’ve written themselves into a problematic situation that is only managing to present both characters involved as two-dimensional stereotypes. In the end, it is Finn who sees that it is HE who is completely in the wrong, so he comes to his senses, admits he has a lot to learn, and protects Kurt from other bullies. Well, when is it Kurt’s turn to learn to respect others? Sure, he claims he got over Finn a long time ago, but that’s way too easy an out for him. He also needs to learn that straights have feelings that are just as real. Hopefully the creators are going to work on that.

But one more smart moment stems from the boys’ new living arrangement—which began weeks ago in the ‘Home’ episode, which included the song “A House is Not a Home” being sung by Kurt and Finn. The thinking ahead that must go into this show, because continuing the Kiss theme, Puck sings Kiss’s “Beth” to Quinn in reference to what they are going to name their baby, but Finn takes over for one verse—a verse that includes the line “our house just ain’t a home,” which he sings while looking directly at Kurt. Wow. Yeah, these Glee people are a real bunch of hacks.

Talk about warping a situation to defend your ignorant opinion. This huge controversy going on in Arizona about the Mexican immigrant laws has people spewing all over the net that those of us who don’t live in Arizona should shut our mouths and the police have every right to stop people who could be in the state illegally and that Mexicans are lazy and don’t work and come into our country and take-take-take and get free healthcare and have babies and pay nothing into our system and something needs to be done about it and they SHOULD be stopped on the street and sent back to where they came from (see the run-on spewing?). Something absolutely needs to be done about illegal immigrants, but is it that hard to see how this practice does it by threatening the sense of safety and security of actual Americans?

What these pure blood (pure breed) patriots (parrots) don’t seem to understand because their opinions are fed to them (Squawk! Poly is a cracker!) is that the concern isn’t that the law is unconstitutional towards illegal immigrants, but that it’s unconstitutional towards Americans!!! Is it that hard to comprehend? I guess it is if your skin color is white and you don’t stand a chance of being violated. Illegal immigrants of every race come into this country, but what we’re doing here is stopping ONLY people of color (aka: racial profiling). So, you can be a full-fledge born-in-America citizen of color and be stopped (and possibly harassed) by the police because of your skin color. ANYONE can be an illegal immigrant, but you’re not going to get stopped if you’re WHITE, because, conveniently, white =American citizen. There’d be a whole lot more understanding about what the problem is with this law if every white person was faced with the threat of being stopped by police and questioned at any time, say when you’re going to be late to work and it could cost you a promotion (hey, at least it wouldn’t be to affirmative action), have to hurry to pick up your child who is waiting all alone at an integrated school (eek!), or you’re rushing to the hospital gushing blood from gun wounds after a shoot out with an illegal immigrant drug lord (thank God you have the right to bear arms for just this kind of frequent situation). You know how nerve-racking it is when you’re stopped by a cop because you were speeding—or even better, how insulted and infuriated you feel when you’re stopped by a cop even though you weren’t speeding??? Now imagine what it would feel like being stopped by a cop simply because you were doing a salsa down the street while listening to a Shakira song on your iPod, exiting a Taco Bell while making love to an enchilada with your mouth, or walking in the park with your Chihuahua.

If they want to put an end to the illegal immigrant problem, here’s a place to start: arrest all the cheapskate rich white people who hire them for shit money to do menial and degrading jobs. If illegal immigrants weren’t being offered ‘opportunity’ here by us, they wouldn’t have any reason to come here. I know, the rich powerful white man hiring illegal aliens to clean his toilets, mow his lawn and screw his wife is such a clichéd and stereotyped concept—it’s almost as bad as assuming everyone with dark skin is an illegal immigrant…

Well, there’s been a big ‘controversy’ about the new poster for Sex and the City 2 because the girls are Photoshopped to look like they did, you know, TEN years ago when the original series was on HBO. Okay, so maybe it’s more like Sarah Jessica Parker looking younger than she did on Square Pegs and Kim Catrall younger than she did in Porky’s. But really, who cares? The truth will come out when the movie is on cable in a year from now–in HD….

But I got a major idea from all this griping about the girls not being ‘real’ on the poster, combined with recent comments by the girls admitting that, no they don’t always get along on the set during 19 hour days, but there’s still a camaraderie they can’t deny. Gee, why does that sound familiar? Oh! The Real Housewives! I’m currently being bombarded by the New York City and Jersey wives as both series are running simultaneously, and damn–all these bitches do is FIGHT. ‘Real’ or not, this shit is becoming repetitive!!! Girls night out, everyone gets into a fight…girls night out, everyone gets into a fight. Give them a script already so we can be entertained.

And that’s where my idea comes in. Before they release a Sex and the City 3 movie, they need to follow Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Catrall, Kristen Davis, and Cynthia Nixon around with cameras the entire time they are filming the third movie, and then edit that continuous cat fight into a Bravo series entitled The Real Girls of Sex and the City. Now that’s the kind of series reboot I’m talking about (two series reboots, actually). When I’m not busy being a marketer’s dream by scoffing up any chocolate that hits the shelves with the words “NEW!” or “Limited Edition” on them, I’m a marketing genius.

So sick of these people with a 500 dollar shopping spree worth of shit in their carts who are either in a ‘hurry’ to get out of a store or are just socially inept so they jump at the opportunity to not have to interact with another human being. Seriously, these stores with self-checkout machines need to put an ITEM LIMIT sign. Every time I go to a store and move to the self-checkout lane for a quick getaway with my two items (usually chocolate and yet another Lady GaGa remix CD), I get stuck behind no less than four people taking up every self-checkout computer with a cart full of early Christmas shopping or something! And it’s always people who are clueless about how the no-brainer bar code scanning technology works. If they’d just spend the extra few minutes standing on a line with an actual cashier, they’d actually be out of the store about 10 minutes sooner because all their purchases would be scanned through and bagged for them within minutes by a…um…professional. And not for nothing, but these people who use the self-checkout to buy the store’s inventory usually have a distracting child in tow trying to mess with the onscreen commands as the nice robot lady voice talks to them, dragging the process out that much longer while a line of twenty people with like two items each is waiting. I wish these kids would just have the guts to kick their parents out of the way to demonstrate how computers actually work….

Meanwhile, while I can barely pay my mortgage despite busting my ass at my job, people get paid big bucks to host shows like Extra despite making uninformed comments like, “Chely Wright is the ONLY country singer to EVER come out of the closet.” Really? REALLY? I know she’s not Elvis Presley (although she’s been known to drag up like him), but you’ve never heard of K.D. Lang??? Maybe I’m the one who’s uniformed, because the first time I ever heard of country singer Chely Wright was two days ago when I was sadly TMI (too much informed) that she feasts on trailer trash tuna taco—you know, the same time the hosts on Extra learned who she was.

Wow. What a week. Just heard this morning that service women will finally be allowed on Navy submarines for the first time ever, even though the Navy is acknowledging that there’s going to be resistance by man-loving-men (and by that, I mean the straight guys) on the submarines who want to keep it an all-boys club (which sadly, also probably means a whole lot of sexual harassment and rape is to come, much of which gets covered up by the military just like the gay bashing and gay murders in the armed services).

So there’s the one step forward. Unfortunately, we also have the despicable legalized racial profiling situation in Arizona in which anyone who is of Latin descent is assumed an illegal alien until proven otherwise. Thank God I live in the more closeted-racist state of New York, where racial profiling is done off the books and on the down low.

Meanwhile, a Mississippi lesbian has been cut from her high school yearbook completely because she wore a tuxedo in her photo. Now I seriously, seriously, SERIOUSLY don’t understand the whole girl wanting to wear a tuxedo thing, but I also don’t give a shit if she wears a flies-on-dog-poop mask that makes Lady GaGa look like Mother Teresa. To punish a teen by basically wiping her entire high school existence from the final recap is absolutely disgusting.

In related news, another lesbian teenager from Mississippi who wanted to go to her prom with her girlfriend, initially causing the school to cancel the prom for EVERYONE before playing the nasty trick of directing she and her date and friends to a decoy prom instead of the actual prom, can now expect to be the cause of her class’s graduation being ruined by a Baptist group that plans to picket the ceremony. I honestly can not fathom that it is ADULTS in this country who are punishing an entire class of impressionable teens because they despise ONE student. What happened to protecting the children? Funny thing is, the group’s statement is that they: “…will picket the graduation of Itawamba Agricultural High School to remind the parents, teachers and students of this nation that God said ‘Thou shall not lie with mankind as with womankind, it is abomination.’” So, in reality, this little lesbo is TOTALLY following what God said! WTBeep? Even God thinks lesbians are hot while we gay guys receive all the persecution!

Hm…I guess I have to reconsider my header for this post, because that makes one step forward THREE steps back…

Okay. I’m sure I did something really special for my birthday last year when I turned 40…probably had a party with some of my nearest and dearest friends. But who can remember something as trivial as that when the stars align like they did today for my 41st birthday? The premiere of the ALL Madonna Glee episode while eating Cold Stone Oreo Ice Cream Cake. Now that’s a way to celebrate a landmark birthday. Which is why, for me, 41 has become the new 40. This was a once in a lifetime event. Now excuse me while I go have a listening marathon of all of my Madonna albums, songs and remixes…which will probably take about a month or two considering I have songs Madonna doesn’t even know she recorded…

I’ve recently tried lactose-free milk for the first time because I haven’t been able to drink real milk since I was a kid–and duh. It suddenly hit me a couple of weeks ago for the first time in my forty years that I should try the lactose-free stuff just for the hell of it, you know, on a weekend when I was going to be home in case I had to deal with any of the  ‘side effects’ (aka: backside effects) that I get from regular milk. Well, it turns out that I get none of that from lactose-free milk! So I’m finally drinking milk again. Never again will I have soy milk in my Cap’n Crunch. The only problem is, as usual, we people who have to deal with food reactions are further punished by exorbitant prices! Lactose-free milk costs a fortune! You would think that, considering it is actually MISSING an ingredient, it would cost less! heh heh.

Meanwhile, today we’re taking our pups for a stroll and we see these two young children, a boy and a girl, neither of them older than, I’d say, six, standing on a corner, no adults in sight. I assumed they were our neighbor’s grandkids, who I consider nothing more than terror tokens to my kid-loathing dogs, so I don’t pay them enough mind to recognize them if their faces should they end up on the side of a lactose-free milk container, which isn’t a stretch of the imagination considering what happened next. I commented to Danny that it was odd that such young kids were out there by themselves.  Seconds later, they’re waving to us and saying hello in their little kiddie voices, so we waved and said hi back. But then the little boy goes, “Are you strangers?” So Danny responded that yeah, we’re kinda strange, and we said bye.

Not exactly a comforting exchange. Think about it. Obviously, this kid has been told not to talk to strangers, but the rules weren’t ever clearly spelled out for him. First, he talked to us BEFORE realizing we ‘might’ be strangers. And then, he ASKED us if we were strangers. Now, what would he have done if we had said, “No, we’re not strangers, we’re friends of your grandpa”? See? ANYONE could answer that question to the kid’s satisfaction, making him believe he’s NOT talking to a stranger since he apparently doesn’t quite understand that a ‘stranger’ would be ANY person that he doesn’t know, not just someone who, when interrogated, is willing to admit they are a stranger. Scary stuff. It’s 1:41 A.M. as I write this. Do you know where your children are? And do you know if they understand the precise definition of the word ‘stranger’?