We used to own the book 102 Dalmatians, and it was one of Big A’s favorites. We would read it all the time a few years back, one of those fleeting childhood fixations I had forgotten all about it until Saturday morning, as my stoner hands scrolled absentmindedly through the kid’s section of HBO Go.
“That one!” Little A cried, and navigated my cursor to not 101 Dalmatians, but it’s sequel.
“Are you sure you don’t want to watch the first movie instead,” I asked, and she remained adamant.
That one.
So on went 102 Dalmatians, and off to the kitchen I sauntered. I paid the movie only half an inebriated mind as I pottered around the house, but during one particularly evil exchange, I looked at the television and declared my hate for Cruella de Vil. I gasped as the word escaped my lips, and backpedaled. “I shouldn’t have said that,” I told Big A, preemptively, expecting her to call me out.
“You can say the H word,” she said. “Oh wait… you used it on a person.”
I could almost hear the wheels turning in her brain as she thought about it more. “Well,” she conceded, “Cruella is trying to kill the puppies.”
“Yeah,” I said, as I picked up some fallen toys, “She’s just a bad person.”
I felt wrong saying it.