clifford’s friends are assholes

Read the story.  I’ve read it 217 times to my son.  I get angrier every time.  This is what I take from this story and then I’ll tell you how I arrive at this point.  Don’t be a prick and don’t be friends with ignorant assholes. 

I’ve read a ton of children’s books over the last few years, but this one plays on my deepest fears and anxieties more than any other.  But that fucking dog and, more importantly, his owner Emily Elizabeth have some seriously rude “friends”.

So here is how the story plays out.  This terrifying, deformed, freakishly massive red dog is having a birthday party.  I mean this fucking thing is planned.  Invitations sent out, decorations up, ice cream and cookies ready to go, the asinine dog has a ridiculous party hat on and his owner Emily has her head in the clouds.

So then the time comes for the party to start and who shows up?  No one.  Not a soul.  Zero people show up and Emily is the calmest 8 year old in the world who literally didn’t have one person show up to the damn birthday party, even for a dog.  She just “wonders” where everyone is.  She’s a moron too by the way, but we’ll get to that later.

So, they handle it in an incredibly humbling and embarrassing way.  But also a way only someone with serious balls would deal with it.  So they go to the park looking for these “friends” to find out why they aren’t at the party.  They head to the playground and everyone is there.  Together.  NOT at the party.  I imagine this scene in reality and it’s the most awkward, gut wrenchingly sad thing I can even imagine.  These pricks are playing baseball and when confronted by Emily and the gigantic red monster behind her the best thing they come up with is that ‘they didn’t have good enough presents, not good enough for such a special friend’.  You have got to be fucking kidding me.  I’ve heard bad excuses before, but that is the worst one of all time.  And please don’t throw that crap back on Emily with the “special friend” bologna.  You are mean kids being mean and Emily and the nuclear fallout K9 could do a lot better than you when it comes to friends.  But…. she tells them to stop being silly and he’d like whatever they got for him.  THEY DIDN’T ACTUALLY GET HIM ANYTHING, EMILY!

This scene gets sadder and sadder and you can’t stop the train wreck if you tried.  At this point I’m begging the dog to mass murder all these jerks to stop this nonsense.  So now, these shit for brains are not only completely caught in a lie, they now need to somehow produce these inferior, made-up gifts and actually attend the party they blew off in the first place.  So they go home (probably rush home) to find anything in their houses they can pawn off as a gift for a dog the size of a house.  These “friends” are pathetic and lower than the dirt they were playing baseball on at the park…

Except…..maybe, just maybe, I am wrong here.  Maybe it is possible there is something behind this animosity towards Emily and her pet that fuels nightmares….

 

 clifford and emily are assholes?

So the so called friends show up at what must be hours after the original start time of the party.  The ice cream is ruined for sure, the cookies stale.  I can’t imagine what this poor mother is thinking.  She must  work 3 jobs already to pay for enough food to feed this beast that she has allowed her daughter to own.  Now, no one shows up to this party?  She must be halfway into a bottle of wine at this point.

 

the gifts

Scott’s gift is a large ball.  Not too bad.  Everyone plays with it until Clifford pulls out the fucking stopper and ends the game immediately.  Ok, not a big deal, maybe he didn’t know that would happen, he;s just a dog.

The next kid brings a piñata.  Not an ideal present for a 10 ton dog, but they decide to let him take some swings.  It goes poorly.  He knocks down trees, a shed, the fence and so on.  Horrific fucking scene.  Luckily no one was hurt or killed, but the 8 year olds are probably mortified and scarred for the rest of their life seeing such a massive force destroy the yard around them.  Yet time for the next gift!

Jenny didn’t even try.  She gave Clifford one of her yellow sweaters.  An 8 year old girl gave a dog as tall as a high school football stadium one of her own sweaters.  Yet the infinite optimist Emily Elizabeth, says ‘it’s perfect for his nose’!  Gigantic backfire, Jenny, ya dumb idiot.  I’m sure she hoped this would be the final straw to end the relationship.  Not today.

Why the next kid would give Clifford a robot dog is beyond me.  Perhaps she figured a robot dog can’t judge or be terrified by a 3 story tall red dog or maybe she’s just a fucking idiot.  Clifford broke it immediately.  Shocking.  Assuming the narrator IS Emily Elizabeth, the line after he breaks the robot is ‘they don’t make toys the way they used to’.  So, to follow this logic, “they” used to make toys that were so indestructible that you could literally drop a house on them and they would not break.  No they didn’t.  They did NOT used to make toys like that.

Then Cynthia and her dog Basker arrive with an actual gift.  They bring a gift certificate to the groomer to get a free shampoo and haircut.  (Side Note: The Bow Wow Beauty Parlor will be adding a size provision to their future documents after the wash and cut of an entire yacht.)  But wait, the picture becomes a little clearer when we see Emily hand this gift off to Scott.  Emily likes Clifford the way he is.  This girl actually re-gifts the gift certificate right in front of Cynthia ala behind the back style that would be virtually impossible for Cynthia to not see.  That takes some serious balls.  Maybe now I am starting to see why some people didn’t feel compelled to make this party a priority.

 

the finale

So this whole disaster gets wrapped up when the cake shows up on a truck.  Clifford was surprised, but became even more surprised when his family pops out of the cake.  SO how fucking long were these poor dogs cooped up in this fake cake while all this non sense was going on?  How did they survive?  And how is Clifford smart enough to know his family and feel genuine happiness to see them yet not feel hurt and confused when they aren’t there for the hours of time prior to this moment?  That’s not fair to him.  The poor bastard has already had a rough go of it anyway being that he is a fucking GIGANTIC RED DOG!

I’ll tell you what should have happened.  Emily’s mom, when she immediately sensed no one was showing up to this thing, should have gotten that fucking cake out with Clifford’s family inside and made the best of things.  This mother was nonexistent after making the cookies and ice cream and that’s not right.  The whole party was mishandled from the get-go and it was a nightmare waiting to happen.

So what I am trying to say is that Clifford and Emily’s ‘friends’ are ignorant assholes, granted, and you shouldn’t surround yourself with that type of negativity, even if life has dealt you a bad hand, you still deserve better.  That being said Emily and her disfigured mutant could try a little harder to be nice to people, considering they know what it’s like to be shit on by crappy people.  Surround yourself with positivity and be positive yourself.  Don’t be a prick to people.  Life is just too short.  At least this is what I got out of the story……