Barney the Driving Dinosaur

Yesterday Maya had to have some kind of incredibly expensive xrays on her teeth as a lead up to the surgery she must have to try to remove some teeth which are growing in the wrong direction inside her gums. This was a relatively stress free outing as far as outings go. (I always psyche myself up for the possibility that any outing may be the outing from hell). After that, Maya, who had only days before placed a dress on hold at Indooroopilly shopping centre, wanted to go pick it up and pay for it with the money she got for her birthday and which was burning a hole in her pocket (the "dress on hold" story is another story in itself and that will come at a later date). Me who hates shopping centres more than I hate almost anything else in the world did not object to this because I knew they had air conditioning as did the car. I could pretend all the people and overstimulating music and lights and sounds didn't exist just to experience the marvel that is air conditioning. We arrived, ate lunch at a leisurely pace and headed for the dress shop. While we waited for Maya to pay for her dress Henry had a ride on Barney the $2 for 30 seconds thrill ride for wee ones. Barney, along with some unidentifiable friends, sat beside the driver (Henry) and spoke some indecipherable language as only Barney could. There is a little steering wheel for the driver which completes this up and down dinosaur driving experience. Henry was so absolutely in love with it that I wondered if he would ever allow us to remove him once the ride stopped. He beeped the horn and said "wow, wow, wow" over and over just like I would if someone handed over a million dollars in cash. Suddenly Barney stopped moving and talking and all was still. Henry stared for several seconds before he realised it wasn't going anywhere anymore. Maya, who had handed over ALL of her cash on one little dress, removed him from the seat and he cried and cried and cried like his heart had been broken in the most awful of ways. I wanted to cry too. How could Barney be so cruel as to only last a few precious moments? Couldn't he see that my child was not going to ever breathe again if Barney didn't just start up and keep going all day and night? I decided then and there that if Barney ever shows his face on our TV again he will be switched off immediately lest my child have nightmares about the day Barney stopped driving.