Random Saturday Morning Observations - Part II

One of my family's very favorite comedy albums is The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. Many of the jokes and expressions Newhart uses have entered the family lexicon. (Newhart is probably second to the cast of Fawlty Towers in terms of numbers in this respect.)

One of the routines Newhart does on this album is called "The Kruschev Landing". His premise is that when Kruschev made his historic visit to the United States back in whenever it was, he actually landed a day early so the television producers could rehearse the whole thing. In his sketch, Newhart plays the television producer overseeing the rehearsal, communicating via headset with an underling named Jerry.

At one point, they're trying to work out the choreography of a little girl meeting Kruschev at the door of the airplane with some flowers. The girl gets away from her handlers and starts running up the ramp to the plane. In rising exaspiration, Newhart says, "Jerry, the flower girl's running up the ramp....Somebody tell Kruschev he's going to bang the kid with th-...he banged the kid with the door!"

"He banged the kid with the door," has become shorthand in our family for any accident that is completely foreseeable and yet somehow utterly unstoppable.

As I was sitting in the kitchen reading the paper a while ago, I noticed the five year old heading into the bathroom. She had her Easter Egg Hunt dress on, but had not tied off the ties in the back - they were left dangling. I knew what was coming, but somehow could not prevent the obvious sequel. A few minutes later, I heard, "Daddy, I got my dress in the potty!"

Sigh. She banged the kid with the door!