It all started on that unknown, but fateful day, back in 1996 in which Pamela broke The Honey Tree as recorded in her auto-biography. Later that year, the beloved MGVT 1 and 2 broke, a tragedy in the annals of Glaser history. A quibbler might note that The Honey Tree was released in VHS form on October 1, 1997. I might point out that some people have too much time on their hands and I believe her dating system at that time was based upon where we lived, meaning anything that happened in Pennsylvania occurred anywhere from the summer of 1996 to the Spring of 2000. Her calendar skills kicked in anywhere from the summer of 2001 to the summer of 2003 because we lived in Alaska.
Pamela wove into her auto-biography entries about every video tape or VCR she broke. For example, in September of 2002, she recalled, "A video cleaner is stucked in a VCR. Its acting up. I cut a VCR. The VCR broke." She even set aside a special page for tracking important video events: picking her favorite videos, breaking them, or buying them on eBay. Her biggest eBay haul was eighteen videos in one auction as a present for Christmas 2003, while her most important one was winning a new copy of the coveted MGVT 1 and 2 in February 2004.But, I digress. Pamela discovered You-Tube this year. She started researching broken video tapes to which I refuse to provide links for obvious reasons. She found a couple of annoying ones in which mindless teens break video tapes over their head and some even chew the tape. Echolalia from these video clips can appear at anytime as you can see in this clip!
Fortunately, Pamela is too smart to try this at home. Unfortunately, she found a safe way to imitate this silliness that is non-toxic and non-scarring. I know I should be thankful for this! She makes paper videos and presses hard with a pen to semi-perforate them to make them easier to rip. To the right are sample paper videos. Here is an example of Pamela in all her glory.
You might smile and say "Awwww . . . how cute!" Check out pictures of my desk drawers which I clean out daily. These pesky paper videos multiply like tribbles. They must go through some weird life cycle change because sometimes they appear as tiny wads of paper. Occasionally, I even come across them soaking wet, probably from a very recent metamorphic transformation. I refuse to hear any of your speculation about alternatives because life cycle changes sound more hygenic!I really should not complain. After all, this broken videotape craze has replaced the Hooper-Bloob Highway monologues. Occasionally, broken videotapes slip into conversations quite appropriately, and I go with it!
