Comics I Don’t Understand

Single Lady

Cidu Bill on Apr 6th 2010

I found this funny. Maybe you have to be a parent…

Filed in Beyonce, Bill Bickel, YouTube, humor | 33 responses so far

33 Responses to “Single Lady”

Jon88 Apr 6th 2010 at 12:57 pm 1

If you are a parent, I hope you’re not making a video with one hand while you’re driving with the other.
DonBoy Apr 6th 2010 at 01:15 pm 2

I saw this on the blog “Sociological Images”, under title “Gender Roles Hurt Everybody”.
WhitneyD Apr 6th 2010 at 01:52 pm 3

This cracked me up. I have two boys, but not because of that. It reminded me of a dog we had when I was in high school. We’d talk to the female dog and ask if she was a pretty princess. She’d wag happily. Our male dog, however, would be dejected if you didn’t ask him if he was a pretty princess. Up until the day he died, calling him a pretty princess would always get a good wag from him.

Of course, it really bothered me that he was taping while driving. Even if it was one of those situations I could sympathize with.
WhitneyD Apr 6th 2010 at 01:53 pm 4

Er, let me rephrase. It cracked me up, but not just because I’m a parent.
John in Tronna Apr 6th 2010 at 01:55 pm 5

I don’t have any kids, but I thought it was hilarious. Poor little tyke!
Rebecca Apr 6th 2010 at 02:17 pm 6

Apparently kids don’t see gender roles as being fixed and permanent until they’re about five. They know there’s boys and girls (and can answer the question of which they are) but don’t understand the differences - they might think that if a boy wears a dress, he becomes a girl.
Howabominable (aka Lindsey ^_^) Apr 6th 2010 at 03:14 pm 7

I thought it was adorable. That kid reminds me of my brother when he was that young. He wanted to be a princess when he grew up.
Heather D Apr 6th 2010 at 03:36 pm 8

Trying to ignore the video-while-driving thing, because otherwise it’s adorable. The comment was just meant to be offhand and cute but it totally hit the kid in the wrong way, as often happens with kids that age! Until the end I assumed it was like a van and someone in the middle row was taping. But yeah, that sort of ruins it for me, which is a shame…
Keera Apr 6th 2010 at 04:34 pm 9

Re filming: Then I guess we can all agree that the dad was right when he said he was a terrible father.

And yeah, family life in a nutshell. LOL!
The Bad Seed Apr 6th 2010 at 07:45 pm 10

I thought this was awesome, but given that the crying wasn’t immediate (the boy paused to look at the others for a few seconds before cranking up), it’s not so much about the actual remark by dad. The boy’s crying seems more like tired, hungry, miserable, attention-seeking crying to me. Doesn’t make it any less funny for me, though.
dasein668 Apr 6th 2010 at 09:20 pm 11

I recall my son saying something when he was about 3 or so and I replied, “Well, I don’t know. But I’ll take your word for it.” which resulted in tears. When he finally calmed down a bit he asked why I was going to “take his words away”… Kids can be awfully funny sometimes.
CIDU Bill Apr 6th 2010 at 10:39 pm 12

From the camera angle, it looks like Mom is doing the filming. In any case, you can see Dad’s right arm is in proper driving position, so there’s no way he can be holding the camera.
Pirk Apr 7th 2010 at 12:45 am 13

why were they even filming?
chuckers Apr 7th 2010 at 05:07 am 14

I thought (hoped) the mom was filming as I was watching it but it seems to be that it is the father that is actually doing the filming.

You can’t see the dad right arm anywhere and his left is on the steering wheel in the final frame. The fact that the camera turns directly on him (as is correctly framed) indicates to me that he is the one doing the filming.

It was REALLY distracting.
Matthew Apr 7th 2010 at 11:14 am 15

Yes, I’m with Pirk. Why was a camera on? I wrote in a paper last week: “There is no unwitnessed life”. I was scarily correct.

As for the father, that male sexual insecurity can get you every time. Of course, why were they listening to such crap, anyway, rather than talking? Who listens to the radio when there are others in the car?
Keera Apr 7th 2010 at 01:55 pm 16

Matthew @15, I’ll take a stab at answering:

Today’s families need constant entertainment. When I was a kid, I’d look out the window at the passing landscape or listen to/join in the conversation of my folks. I grew up with my grandparents and they deliberately chose not to have a radio in their car; we didn’t miss it. Today’s families stick DVD-players (one per kid) in the back seat, or all the kids have their individual music players wired to their ears while the grown-ups listen to their stuff on the car stereo up front. (BTDT.)

That said, this family is at least not disconnected from each other, but doing something together: Listening and dancing to the same music. Nobody’s “unplugged” from the other humans.

As for the filming, my folks filmed me with a Super-8 and it was fun to watch afterwards so that hasn’t changed. Today’s technology makes it easier and cheaper to record and remember family outings.
Cidu Bill Apr 7th 2010 at 02:04 pm 17

I think most parents will agree that on long car trips, anything that keeps the kids settled is the correct solution. Except, of course, for Raffi.

Our own car trips were usually divided between music and talking, most of the discussion between me and my oldest son. My other son wasn’t much of a talker when he was young, especially during car trips, with notable exceptions such as the summer he was five when pretty much out of the blue he asked me to explain the difference between murder and manslaughter.
Jeff S. Apr 7th 2010 at 02:40 pm 18

We have a 7.5 yr difference between our son and our daughter, with my son being the older one. To keep herself occupied during ANY car travel, our daughter came up with the “Quiz Game”. She would ask conversation starter type questions, i.e. — What’s Mommy’s favorite color?, then tell who she wanted to answer the question. One day, my son, my daughter, and I were driving to the store when she asked my son, What’s your favorite class in school? He replied Gym. Then she said, I thought it was French… I heard you tell your girlfriend on the phone that you liked (to) French.

I literally laughed so hard, I nearly wrecked the car. The look on my son’s face was priceless.
Matthew Apr 7th 2010 at 03:03 pm 19

Now, see? Jeff S.’s story (#18) is the reason to turn off the electronics. Of course, I haven’t been on long car rides with children for years, and they were such pests (my then-wife’s), that we permitted all to use Walkmen (the electronics of choice 15 years ago). By the way, would the feelings of Jeff S’s son toward his sister lean toward murder or manslaughter?
Cidu Bill Apr 7th 2010 at 05:20 pm 20

Definitely murder, Matthew: it’s rare to form intent to commit manslaughter.
Chuck Apr 7th 2010 at 05:34 pm 21

A couple weeks ago my mom, sister, and I went to San Francisco. It was an 8 hour drive. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like myself enough to talk for 8 hours. I was looking at the landscape and taking pictures, but we needed music to down out the sound of the bug splattering on the windshield.
Elyrest Apr 7th 2010 at 06:10 pm 22

When we were little and traveled we spent a lot of time singing and playing games. These both led to lots of discussion and laughter (and fighting). The radio was often on too and we all listened to the music - of course this would lead to more singing. Keera (16) - although I have seen the individual DVD’s in commercials and on TV I don’t personally know anyone who has these in their cars. Of course my friends don’t have young kids for the most part, but I wonder how common these are.

“we needed music to down out the sound of the bug splattering on the windshield.”

Chuck - you must’ve been driving on I-5. I was on that once where I swear I had to stop every 5 miles or so to scrape the dead bodies off the windshield.
Mark in Boston Apr 7th 2010 at 06:43 pm 23

Children are so fragile.

I was waiting in line at the ice cream store and there was a family in front of me with two little boys. The boys were allowed to order anything they wanted. The clerk served the older boy first, and the younger boy started crying just because his older brother was served first.

Some people are never satisfied.
FeelinOld Apr 7th 2010 at 07:54 pm 24

Elyrest: Got to be careful making that statement (scrape dead bodies off) without ‘Bugs ‘ in it.

Dumb question what bugs? Especially this time of year.
(Sorry I’m from the prairies, this time of year is nice cause we’re between snow and bugs, went across to Saskatchewan last summer and had the traction control system cut in a couple times because the road was so slippery with grasshoppers)
John Bledsoe Apr 7th 2010 at 08:56 pm 25

What a crappy song for those poor kids to be singing to
Elyrest Apr 7th 2010 at 11:46 pm 26

FeelinOld - Ha Ha! Very good. I reread my comment and you’re right it might not be bug bodies I scraped. I-5 goes down through the central valley of California where most of the produce is grown. It’s warm and fertile all year and I-5’s proximity seems to attract all sorts of bugs to the lights and the windshields anytime I drove up/down it.

I’ve never slipped on grasshoppers, but I’ve walked in woods that were so full of gypsy moths that you could hear the munching of the leaves. They also plopped out of the trees onto my head. That was in Pennsylvania.
Chuck Apr 8th 2010 at 12:28 am 27

Elyrest, that is creepy, though I suppose I gave you all the clues you needed.

At one point we drove over water, and so many bugs hit it sounded like rain.
Keera Apr 8th 2010 at 01:25 am 28

Elyrest @22, perhaps the DVD-players are more common in Norway. My impression here is that “everybody” has one per kid. I don’t know how they do it. Me, I can’t even read a few pages in a book without getting carsick.
Chuck Apr 8th 2010 at 03:17 am 29

We have no DVD player for my little sister. Our much younger cousin has one and my sister was amazed. She does have an iPod Nano, but at least my parents are holding firm on the cell phone thing. She also has a nicer DS than I do. Curses.

And Keera, I once got motion sickness from glancing at a bunch of tiny little flowers flowing downhill in the gutter while I was running uphill. I certainly can’t watch a movie in a car.
Keera Apr 8th 2010 at 11:45 am 30

Chuck, you poor thing! You’re worse than I am!
FeelinOld Apr 8th 2010 at 12:53 pm 31

Never had a problem reading in the car, except for the fact that my two siblings did get car sick if they read, so they made it their mission in life to prevent my reading. (I really feel for my parents, how on earth did they manage to put up with us…)
This of course was pre walkman never mind pre dvd, whatever music mom and dad were listening to, that’s what we listened to.
Tom Townsend Apr 8th 2010 at 01:23 pm 32

I am a parent and on long car trips or even short ones my boys (and me) enjoy books on CD. Everybody has a different view on this and it doesn’t make one a bad parent because they let their kids watch TV in the car, but personally I despise that practice. And as others have mentioned, it appears that the driver was also shooting a movie - if this is true he deserves to have his license revoked. And he is raising his kids to have yucky taste in music.
Chuck Apr 8th 2010 at 07:05 pm 33

No, he’s raising them to have a yucky taste in movies. The only reason the kids like that song is that it was in The Squeakuel.