Sick and Twisted

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We have all encountered these couples at some point in our lives. You know the ones. Where they are absolutely nuts about each other. Their feelings are obvious to everyone but each other. It’s awkward and uncomfortable for absolutely anyone who ever comes into contact with them. We have a couple like that. They’ve been in our lives for eleven years. Eleven years. And they are still dancing around each other like kids with cooties at a fifth grade dance. And if you have kids, you may know them, too. That’s right. I am talking about Bob the Builder and his gal-pal Wendy. Click the link and tell me that even the cat isn’t disgusted by their cluelessness.

They’ve skated around one another for so long that I can no longer bear to watch. He takes dance lessons to impress Wendy, um, everyone. Yeah, slick, Bob. No one caught that. Awkward. And she is bitterly disappointed when he doesn’t do something special for her. Because he can’t read her mind and know that she’d lay bricks for him any day of the week.

You would think that at some point in the last decade, one of them would have cracked. ONE of them would have confessed their true love for the other. But no. I find myself in every episode wanting to shout “C’mon, Bob! Man up! She paved your road for you when you were sick, and let you take the credit. Love doesn’t get anymore real than that! And Wendy, really! You’re in construction. You’ve already turned gender-roles on their chauvinistic heads. Ask him out!”

You would think by now that the ticking of her claymation clock would have finally driven her into his arms. Those little babies she clearly wants aren’t going to sculpt themselves. Who is going to take care of them in their old age, after all? Every citizen in town is older than they are. Their species is about to die out, and the only ones left to care for them will be the machines. And those things will rust out eventually. Hey, Bob! Yo, Wendy! Do you really want your adult diaper to be changed by a corroded scooper?

The episode that really killed it all for me was “Bob’s Forget Me Knot.” Are you ready for this? Wendy got Bob an electronic planner. With dead batteries. Bob spent his entire day telling her how great the planner was and messing up all of his jobs because he was too proud to tell her that he didn’t know how to work the computer. She spent her day laughing at him because she knew the stupid computer didn’t work and that he was lying to her the whole time. Come on, people! Those kinds of crazy, twisted mind games actually MAKE you married in 48 states. Crazy seals the deal more firmly than a kiss and a preacher every single time.

I’ve tried to help them, but my helpful encouragement and the occasional swear word have fallen on deaf ears. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t get my hopes up for them again. I have been burned too many times. But Squish just got the Christmas special from the library. Maybe this time Bob will get his act together and produce an engagement ring. I’ll let you know.