THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 17, 1994 TAG: 9406160172
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
DATELINE: 940617 LENGTH: Medium
On my personal good, better and best scale back then, Disney characters rated several points above the superlative.
{REST} Many years, pounds and gray hairs later, they still do.
Which is why, one rainy afternoon a few months ago, I walked into my favorite discount office supply store and plunked down $30 and change for something called a Disney Collection Screen Saver.
A screen saver, for those of you who aren't into such things, is a computer gadget which keeps characters zinging around your screen when you're not using it.
Its purpose is to keep the last paragraph you wrote from staying so long in one place that it burns its image permanently into the screen.
Or something like that. Maybe you'd be better off just accepting the fact that I, fiscally conservative, fifty-something-grandmother-to-be, am still willing to part with hard-earned cash so I can watch a bunch of mice, ducks and dogs dancing around in living color on a 12-inch screen.
My very favorite, much to Charlie the Lhasa's disgust, is Goofy.
Why you ask, does my four-footed fuzz ball find a long-eared dog, the product of a marriage between a production studio and a floppy disk, disgusting?
It's because Goofy engages in the four letter ``W'' word. Work. Charlie does not do any and he does not have any use for dogs who do.
Goofy, on the other hand does, at least on my computer screen. He moves files around, dispatches them to the electronic trash can, rides a freight elevator along the edge of the screen and fights a losing battle with a treadmill in the bottom margin.
Whenever Goofy emits an electronic ``Gawrsh,'' Charlie counters with a ``harrumph'' that is pure Lhasa.
I do not, however, let that take away from my enjoyment of Goofy and Co. It's like having the Bijou theater of my childhood Saturday afternoons right here at my desk.
Apparently I'm not the only person who feels that way. My son the scientist tells me that one of his co-workers has the same screen saver and that everyone who goes by stops to watch it for a while.
His co-workers are some of our country's top scientists. Personally, I like the idea of Goofy guarding our nation's most important research. It seems fitting to me, but Charlie just harrumphs the whole idea.
My son the hotel man says that one of his company's executives has a Goofy screen saver too. ``It's one of the guys in reservations,'' he told me the last time he was home.
``I guess that explains why families of seven get booked into executive suites and corporate honchos end up in double-doubles with a roll-away. Goofy does it.''
``Which is about the best you can expect from a dog who works,'' Charlie snarled.
Even Bill got into the Goofy act the other day. I picked up a letter I had just printed for him and found it smudged.
``Guess I'd better clean the printer,'' I muttered.
``How do you do that?'' my husband, who has been known to flee in terror from a computer teetering on the brink of crashing, asked.
``Oh, I just pull down a menu, punch a couple of keys and something swishes around in the printer and cleans it up,'' I told him. ``Actually,'' I added, ``I have no idea what goes on in there.''
``I do,'' Bill said. ``It's Goofy. He does it with a little broom and dust pan.''
I smiled. Charlie, predictably, harrumphed.
``The man doesn't know what he's talking about,'' my dust mop growled.
``Yes, he does,'' I told the Lhasa. ``What he's talking about is something called whimsy and it's one of the reasons I married Dad. He was the only guy I dated who didn't think I was crazy because I named my typewriter, dressed my cat in doll clothes and considered Walt Disney's `Three Caballeros' the greatest movie ever made.
``And,'' I added, ``he's probably one of the few men around who would put up with a cantankerous, hair-dropping, bad-breathed dog with an anti-work ethic.
``So if I were you, I'd quit with the comments, cozy up to Dad and take a trip to the shopping center for a Father's Day card. There aren't many like him around.
``Harrumph,'' the fuzz ball said one last time before he went back to snarling at Goofy's image on my computer screen.
by CNB