SKYLER: A strange woman flies through your bedroom window and pours sugar down your throat until you clean your room … Mary Poppins is scary. Another twisted tale in a tangled catalog, created by child psychologists to drum-up business. Just the other night, I was dreaming in Imax that I was taking my SATs, and sitting next to me was Harriet Potter … long lost sister of Harry-Filling-in her multiple choice answers with a #02 wand. Suddenly my pencil breaks! Harriet—who looks like Daniel Radcliff in a weave, casts a spell—“Nostradamus!”—And just like that, a fresh new pencil magically appears in my hand, and- I have a new best friend! I finish my SATs before my extended time, walk up the aisle, gingerly place the exam on the desk and retire my magic pencil into the proctor’s “I Heart Hogwarts” coffee mug. And that’s when I noticed … I just signed the passport to my future … with a number three pencil. A number three! Curse you Harriet Potter and the prison of your own ambition! No sooner had I returned to my seat then an alarm went off accompanied by red flashing lights and the ominous whirl of Blackhawk helicopters. (Voices a copter sound and then, as a SWAT officer) “Put down the pencil!” Then flying Dementors whisked me to a secret chamber where they place people who defy the warnings not to remove tags from pillowcases. My cellmate? None other than She-Who’s-Name-Cannot-Be-Mentioned Three Times: Scary Poppins?! “Who asked you to return?! I gasped between hits of my inhaler: “You and your dysfunctional kite flying, umbrella … paragliding, penguin step-dancing. What is wrong with you, lady? Grow up! (casting her out) I unfriend you and Harriet!”
Then I woke … to the gentle music of a breaking bus (makes sound) … day dreaming of a new bedtime story. One without a tangerine bear in a crop-top, or a purple dinosaur professing his love for me, or a home invasion by Goldilocks … or, or … frogs that turn into princes who act like toads after you’ve kissed them! And I will rescue a princess (or prince) who is neither Frozen, nor accompanied by a mutant snowman. Preferably someone calm. Whose high pitched singing does not attract Angry Birds that carry the West Nile Virus. And we will live happily ever after. In a bomb-shelter. With our number two pencils sans lead. And deforesting. And we will not answer the door on Halloween. If friends can trick you, why give strangers the option?