So I was wandering through Party City today on a reconnaissance mission to scout out Elmo options for my daughter's upcoming 2nd birthday in May, when I happened across one of the oddest things I've seen in a long time. I literally stopped dead in my tracks... dead being the operative word here.
Across the top was a catchy, albeit, disturbing title...
THE BAG OF PLAGUES. I gasps audibly and looked around to see if anyone had seen it too. I approached with great caution, head cocked to one side, perplexed look on my face. HUH? I looked around with great concern. What section was I in, anyway?? Turns out I was in a small (but interesting) Jewish section for the upcoming passover. Intrigued... I pressed on. What could be more fun than a bag o' plagues? Inside the bag was a treasure trove of wonders I had yet to behold. A sack of suffering if you will... a... oh heck, just check out this picture just so you know I couldn't even begin to make something like this up:
Ok, so let's peek inside and see what you get. Well it's all 10 Biblical plagues (or representations of them in fun learning toy form) that God and Moses rained down on those naughty Egyptians for not letting the Israelite people go. I remember the story well from Sunday school. Each plague got worse and worse until finally the stubborn pharaoh let everyone get out of Dodge. So here's a complete list of what you'll get for your money:
Blood: Fake blood
Frogs: Plastic frogs
Lice: Small black bug
Wild Beasts: Animal finger puppets
Cattle Plague: Cow mask
Boils: Sticky hands with boils
Hail: Plastic ice cube
Locust: Large green locust
Darkness: Sunglasses
Death of the Firstborn: 9-pc. puzzle
My personal favorites? The sticky hands with white boils (cause, you know you want your kids playing with boils), the vial of "blood" (love the disclaimer cause real blood might be straw that crosses this camel into "creepy" land), and of course the giant scary louse. The sunglasses (for the darkness plague) add a nice touch and can be used later for "Risky Business" floor slides and Secret Service make-believe games.
I was so enamored with this little bag of God's wrath that I HAD to share it with my zany friends, so I clicked a quick cell pic of the bag with matching title and sent it off with the caption.. What the?!? A few moments pass and I get an overwhelming response. Where ARE you?? Another wrote, "that's hilarious, but where the hell are you?" I replied... I'm at the passover section of Party City... talk about a fun theme party, my friend. It's not a party til someone cracks open the bag of plagues. Let the death and mayhem begin.
But before you guffaw yourself silly, BEWARE! This is serious Jewish business here. One google of the Bag of Plagues will call up hundreds of sites offering passover "fun" and educational tools that help little kids learn about their faith. Like the passover bag of frogs seen here:
http://www.milechai.com/p/passover-educational-toys.html
I'd like to state for the record here that I'm not at all dissing the Jewish faith. I was just surprised to find such a wonderful little abstract item tucked between the Mardi Gras and St. Patrick's Day party supplies. The more I think about it the more I want to go back and get myself a bag O' plagues. Hey I think the Jews are on to something. Heck more power to them. Especially this time for thinking outside the pox.
So I don't know if you remember this picture or not... but it's the most hilarious picture ever taken at Disneyland. In all reality it was snapped at the exact time a large fireworks display was going off, however it looks like good ol' Walt and Mickey are leading their followers into an atomic bomb blast for a mass suicide.
I was reminded of this picture this morning when I went into my bathroom. We have one of those double sink counters with large mirror and at the top is a panel of lights. Now for the last three years they've been slowly burning out but we haven't been replacing them. I totally got use to the dimness in there and when I noticed we were down to one bulb I thought well heck, it's time to break down and buy some bulbs. So I went to the store and bought two 3-packs of bulbs and headed home. Well turns out they were 60-watters... EACH. I suppose the old bulbs must of been 40-watters so when I flipped on the switch I wasn't just getting 240 watts, but rather 360 watts! All at once. Coming from a darkened bedroom it was like I had entered the surface of the sun. It took me a full minute to stop squinting! It was like Jesus was coming back. Anyway, I was reminded of the picture where Walt tried to take us to heaven with him and it made me laugh. Thought I'd share.
So you're probably wondering what this picture is of? Well it's another one of those completely unplanned pictures that end up amusing me greatly. We were at Disneyland a few months back and were watching the big 50th anniversary fireworks show in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle. Everything was going just fine until my husband snapped this particular shot at the perfect shutter speed.
Not only does it look like we've just witnessed the largest atomic bomb in history, but Mickey and Walt himself are leading us into the heart of the apocalypse. It looks like our very last day on earth. I guess if you were going to be annihilated from all time and space, Disneyland would be better than most places. I just wonder if it would still be considered the "happiest" place on earth?
So, take a really really good look at this picture. Go ahead. Really study it. This is a random picture I found in my husbands baby book. Why was it in the baby book nestled amongst the cute infant photos? I have no earthy idea. But once I started to look at it, I just couldn't STOP looking at it. It intrigues me. Some of the people in the photo are known, the man in the background arms a-kimbo is my husband's grandpa, the man smoking he thought was his dad but alas his dad is a non smoker. It almost caused a family scandal, but after some research we come to find out it's just an uncle -oh and his mom is the woman behind him with her arms crossed. Only trouble is, after much speculation, no one can remember when or WHY this picture happened, but more importantly, WHO in the heck was the gleeful, crazed looking woman with the gun??
What was she shooting at? Why does she look so happy? Why did she dress like that to go shoot guns in the wilderness? Did she escape from an asylum? Why is grandpa staring down the camera and not watching the action? I just can't stop staring at this picture. I stare at it until I start to laugh. I think someone could make up an entire movie plot from this one picture, it's just so rich with unanswered questions. They say a picture is worth 1000 words, but you'd have to at least double it to get your money's worth on this one. If you can't stop staring at this picture either and can come up with a clever caption or back story, feel free to share it with the rest of the class.
