Betting My Bottom Dollar That Tomorrow, There'll Be School

Yesterday afternoon, to cut the boredom of a sick day, Nutmeg and I watched "Annie" on the computer through our Netflix account. We both agreed that we are so buying the DVD and the soundtrack.

Of course, I own the soundtrack. On vinyl, and we don't have a turntable. Wouldn't it be so cool if I had a turntable in the living room, and when people asked me what kind of tracks I was into, I told them, "I only have it to play the 'Annie' soundtrack."?

When I was a kid and both the movie and the stage revival were out, it was all about "Annie" for my friends, er, cousins and I. We staged vain attempts to reenact orphan ensemble numbers wherever we happened to be -- the coat room of the Spaghetti Station, up in someone's room at a sleepover, wherever. We were all convinced that we could become the next cast members if only our moms weren't too mean to drive us to Chicago for auditions.

My mom, who was also my brownie troop co-leader, arranged for the troop to see the musical in Chicago. This was the next best thing to launching my own Broadway career, and I was ecstatic. Until I was changing into my bathing suit one day for swimming lessons and noticed a couple of itchy red spots on my stomach.

My mother, bless her heart, actually considered taking a kid with chicken pox into a crowded theater. The only thing that stopped her was that the other leader had never had chicken pox before.

I did get to see the play, but later, with my parents. It was not the same! And of course I let my poor parents know that, probably repeatedly through a long drive into Chicago traffic, through $15 parking, through paying the credit card bill for the three tickets, and back again.

With mean, mean parents like that, you can see why I longed to trade lives with a Depression-era orphan.

I remember my dad having to remind me that the people in the live audience did not pay $30 (or whatever it was back then) to hear me sing every song along with the actresses. Fortunately, Nutmeg had no such complaints. I was happy and only a little surprised to find that I still knew every word, even to Carol Burnett's songs ... "If I wrung little necks, surely I would get an aQUITTAL!"

It was good to see that the movie held up through adult eyes. Sure, I'm now less fascinated with the life of imaginary, singing orphans (I always wanted to be Pepper) and more entertained by Carol Burnett's fantastic performance. God, she is so f-ing funny, and her delivery of those songs is such that now that I'm too old to long to be an orphan, I just want to be her.