Eleventh Stay-at-Home Day of the Leatherman Christmas

On the eleventh stay-at-home day of the Leatherman Christmas, we learned from Mrs. Wader that corn is a starch.

Given Cal's borderline obsession with the movie Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the number of times we watched it over the course of our 11 stay-at-home days, it might be surprising that we managed to watch a lot of Frosty the Snowman, too, most often at Ella's request.  "Watch Fwosty?" she'd say.  Frankly, it was always a welcome break from Rudolph.

There's a scene early in the movie before any of the kids have even met Frosty.  We get to know Walter Wader a bit -- he's a nervous boy, a big rule follower and terribly intimidated by his mother.  In this scene, we're in the Waders' living room, and there's a knock at the door.  This triggers an exchange between Walter and Mrs. Wader.  I don't remember the exact exchange (Cal would), but Walter's mom starts pounding Walter with questions starting with what should he do when someone's at the door?  Walter responds that he should answer it.  Mrs. Wader tells him no.  Walter wonders if he should grab a can of vegetables, corn perhaps, and hit the guest with it.  Mrs. Wader then corrects him -- "corn is not a vegetable, Walter, it's a starch."  And the scene goes on from there.

This stuck in all of our minds.  Well, everyone's but Ella's.  There's a good chance that she didn't really hear it given her penchant for "watching" only the first 10 minutes of a movie before moving on to something else.  But for awhile, Dan was able to replay the exchange for us pretty close to word-for-word.  I was just happy to know this fact.  And Cal?  In addition to participating in the scene replay with Dan, Cal now always answers this question correctly:  "What kind of food is corn?  Is it a vegetable?"  His response is always a confident, "corn is a starch."  I'm waiting for the day when he corrects his teacher -- "our vegetable today is corn," the teacher might say, to which Cal will respond snottily, "CORN is not a vegetable... corn is a STARCH!"

As much fun as we had with the whole corn-is-a-starch bit, Cal's favorite quote from Frosty the Snowman was from a scene much later in the movie.  Frosty had shaken up the town of Evergreen, and Walter had witnessed Frosty's apparent drowning, the result of being misled by Principal Pankley.  Walter is sleeping restlessly, having what appears to be a nightmare.  It was during this nightmare that Cal started smiling because he knows what's coming.  Once Walter awakens abruptly and exclaims, "Frosty, Frosty!  Look out!" Cal was laughing heartily.

The quote itself was really unremarkable.  I'm not sure what about it was so funny to Cal.  But it was and still is, even through to today.  "Frosty, Frosty!  Look out!"  BAAAAHAAAAAA!  Cal's amusement with this makes the rest of us laugh, too.