Misery Loves Company Installment #5

Installment #5

Chapter 4 (Continued)

"Misery," my mom yelled at me breaking my concentration on the facts of life. "It's four o'clock. It's time for the Mickey Mouse Club!"

It was my favorite TV show. It was 1961 and my favorite TV show was reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club. I had no idea they were reruns, though, and I didn't even know what a rerun was. All I knew at the time was that these kids on the Mickey Mouse Club must be the luckiest kids in the world. They were the idols of kids like me around the world and they lived at Disneyland. And their best friend was my hero, Mickey Mouse.

I could hear the thumping of the drums and the fanfare of the trumpets blare out from the other room. I hurried to pull up my pants and buckle them as I tried to run into the family room where the television was. I was screaming as loud as I could, half running down the hall, "Mickey Mouse Club! Mickey Mouse Club!" I ran into the room and slid to a semi-reclining position in front of the TV, not wanting to miss another second of the show.

I sang but more shouted with the opening as all the cartoon characters sang M-I-C-K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E." I really got into it. I loved it. But then Donald Duck would come on and try to take over the club, yelling and squawking. He would shout "Donald Duck!" and I would yell back even louder, "Mickey Mouse." I hated Donald Duck.

My mother would yell at me from the kitchen, "Misery, keep it down in there, Your sister is trying to sleep."

 So far that was the only problem I had found with having a baby sister: You always had to keep it down and be quiet. It seemed like she was always taking a nap when I was making noise. It never failed.

I glued my eyes to the TV, my favorite part was coming up next and I especially didn't want to miss that. Jimmy called out in time with the music, "Roll call everybody, sound off now!" The mouseketeers began to callout their names one by one as a chime sounded off with them and the spotlight lit them up so you could see their faces. There was Tommy, and the chimes would chime and the spotlight would light him up and he would turn and smile. And there was Darlene, ding, ding; Chubby, ding, ding; Bobby, ding, ding; Annette, ding, ding.

There she was. A whole second and my heart was racing. Annette made me forget all about auburn hair blowing in my face. Now I wanted her hair! All I seemed to think about, anymore, was getting to see Annette on the TV and hopefully one day getting to see her in person at Disneyland. And then once I met her, who knows what would happen then. Maybe I would have her hair blowing in my face, sitting in my wagon together with me holding tight to her waist. I dreamed on, caught up in my fantasy. But I would have to get someone to peddle the tractor. Maybe Bobby or one of the other Mousketeers would do it. It would be good fun for them. They would like peddling my little red tractor around. I went on in my dreams. Even though my mind wandered, my eyes stayed glued to the TV for Annette's next appearance. I didn't want to miss any of her. The Mickey Mouse Club was my favorite show, but my favorite Mickey Mouse Club shows were the ones where Annette had her own serial on the show; the one where they would sing a song and finished by singing, Annette, Annette, Annette.

I talked about Annette everyday and to everyone. I would talk to my mother about Annette in the kitchen when she was fixing dinner. I would talk to my dad about Annette when he was trying to watch the football games. He liked his football games almost as much as I liked the Mickey Mouse Club, but he would listen to me and say "uh-uh, uh-uh." at least until the cheerleaders, came on. When the cheerleaders came on he would sit up and move closer to the TV and move me out of the way with his hands and tell me to be quiet and to go sit down in the other room. I even talked about Annette to all of my friends that raced me down the hill.

Everyone liked Annette. But I was the only one that really lover her. I was sure of that. We would sit outside or in someone's family room arguing about who liked Annette most and which one of us she would like if we to ever met her. I always won the argument. At least I always figured I won the argument because I just knew she would like me best. I knew that one day I was going to meet her, and she was going to like me. I told everyone that, and I just knew it was going to happen. And I knew it was going to be the greatest thing of my life.