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So this is my fourth day of watching and writing about Breakfast with Bear, and it’s traditional with these My Week columns that Thursday is the day when it starts to get to me.
Breakfast with Bear has gotten to me. I wake up in the morning and I say, Hey, it’s a brand new day, and I’m feeling fine in every way. I eat a banana and I think, this is going to give me energy for the whole day. Breakfast with Bear is inside me now. I’ve swallowed the blue pill.
And it must be giving me flashbacks, cause Bear’s in the suburbs again, and he’s talking to another closed-mouthed kid. This one’s name is Abby, and she says five words in the opening segment: Bear, You’re welcome, Thanks, and Yes. What is it with kids in the suburbs these days? I grew up in suburban New Jersey, and all the kids I knew used to yammer away something fierce. It was a struggle to get them to pipe down for five minutes. Now they’re all mimes.
When Abby does manage to get a couple words out, she talks in a throaty whisper, like it’s a state secret what waffles look like. She’s also spectacularly unhelpful.
Bear: “So, Abby… what do you usually like to have for breakfast?”
Abby: “ummm… i like… to have waffles…”
Bear: “Waffles! Wow, waffles can be very good. Now, waffles: What do they look like? Are they flat?”
Abby: “ummm, they’re a circle, with squares in them.”
Bear: “Like little pockets?”
Abby: “no… not pockets.”
Bear: “Not pockets. No. Like little — like little dents?”
Abby: (grins and shakes her head)
Bear: “No. No, no, no. No. Like little holes!”
Abby: (shakes her head)
Bear: “No. Like little… waffle spaces.”
Abby: (shakes her head)
Bear: “No. Okay. But they’re different from, say, like, pancakes. Do you like pancakes?”
Abby: (nods)
Bear: (nods)
And then they have pancakes. I mean, is it me?
Then it turns out that the way she likes to eat pancakes is to pour some syrup on the side of the plate, pick the pancake up with her fingers, and dip it in the syrup. “Wow!” Bear says, although what he’s thinking is how did I end up having breakfast with Wednesday Addams. Then she spends half of the next segment chewing pancakes with her mouth open.
So the question is: Is it okay for me to not like a child? Not in general, not in the abstract — for the most part, children are hilarious, and I’d rather spend an hour with any given child than five minutes with the corresponding adult, so I have this nagging sense of guilt when it comes to not liking Abby really at all. I wasn’t crazy about Rhea in yesterday’s episode, but it was more that I felt bad for her. I don’t feel bad for Abby. I feel bad about her.
Luckily, the show’s essential Bearness kicks in at the end. Abby shows Bear how to play hopscotch, and she’s just as whispery and impenetrable as before, and it doesn’t seem like she knows the rules of hopscotch. Bear hops across the squares, and Abby responds to this amazing sight by looking down and chewing on her fingernail.
Then Bear thanks her for spending the morning with him. He asks her what her favorite part was, and she says hopscotch. He says, “My favorite part was… everything I did with you. How about a bear hug?” And she throws her arms around him, and gives him a huge, long hug. Then Abby’s mom says that it’s time to go to school. Abby runs into the house, and without looking back, she yells, “Bye, Bear! I love you!” And Bear says, “I love you too!”
So. I mean. You know?
