I’ve read a couple of rave reviews for the latest Toy Story film and I’ve now got mixed feelings about seeing it. I didn’t see the first one when it came out, I finally watched it when I’d got children of my own and the second one had just been released. 
What’s not to like about Woody and Buzz? A wonderful story about friendship and trust backed up with a strong script and enough in jokes to keep an entire lecture on intertexuality going strong. But Toy Story 3 is by all accounts a real tear-jerker and that puts me off going – not because I don’t like tear-jerkers, on the contrary, I love them but I don’t like to cry in public.
Crying in public, in my family at least, is a sign of weakness. Not that we’d say that because we’re as buttoned up as the local haberdashery. Unfortunately this is all at odds with my natural inclination to sob at every available opportunity. Someone’s dog dies? Someone’s dog rescues them? A child wins a race in the face of adversity? Man lands on the Moon? A town gets flooded? All of them bring on the same effect – I cry. When I was studying fine art I was accused of being over sentimental in my work – no surprise there.
So I try to avoid occasions that will end up with me all puffy faced and snotty – it’s not a good look. Unfortunately that’s almost impossible as I try to deal with my twelve year old son’s recent diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes. I went to see our family GP a couple of weeks ago to ask him to help us with getting my son, R an insulin pump because his life will be more close to normal with one and he’ll have better control over his condition. Our GP was great and hopefully R will be on a pump by the end of the year. The meeting itself was a total car-crash of emotions. I couldn’t even get the first sentence out without becoming blotchy, sweaty and high-pitched. I did a lot of fanning my face – you know, the action you see emotional women do on films when it all becomes too much for them. The fanning is useless – it doesn’t cool you down or stop you from looking like a baby having a temper tantrum but it does give you something to do with your hand while you try to drag back the emotional tarpaulin that’s fallen over the side of stability and into the raging seas of loopy. Blowing out seems to go along with this too – I’ve no idea how it’s supposed to help but I seem to do a lot of it when I’m ‘emotional’ – I would say I picked it up at antenatal classes when I was pregnant but that would be a lie – I’ve got twins and it was decided very early on by my doctor that an elective caesarean was the way to go – no breathing exercises but instead a subscription to ‘Hello’ magazine for when you’re waiting around for the pesky kids to be delivered, washed and sent to your arms.
Maybe all the emotion swayed the GP into getting things moving quickly – anything to have the snotty, damp woman out of his surgery.
So you see I can’t go to the local multiplex and watch Toy Story 3 as much as I want to because I will sob. Loudly.
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