What's not to love?
I have a few favorite episodes too. The one where Squidward has to take over the band and teach everyone to play an instrument to impress Squilliam Fancyson and the whole town comes through and performs an epic musical montage. The episode where Sponge Bob becomes "normal" and greets everyone with, "Hello. How are you? Wonderful weather we're having." as his holes disappear and he becomes smooth and glassy. My favorite episode is the one where all the jellyfish invade his home and have a raging party and he cannot get them to go away. They trash his house, he cannot sleep and it's messing up his entire life. Finally, Gary the snail figures out how to get them to go away. Gary knocks his eyeballs together to create a beat and the whole ocean chimes in creating a rhythmic song to usher the jellyfish back to jellyfish fields, sort of like the pied piper. Yeah, that one is my favorite.
Setting these episodes to the side however, there is one episode of Sponge Bob in particular we reference in our family quite a bit. We use it often to not only define ourselves, but to categorize other people. Yes, there is some judgement involved, but it isn't mean spirited, it's just a kinder, more gentle way to help my kids see that there are differences in people that they meet, and to help us determine what kind of people we want to become.
So, there is this place called the Salty Spittoon. Sponge Bob desperately wants to enter, but he isn't tough enough. Sandy is tough enough, she gets in easily. Sponge Bob knows that to get into the Salty Spittoon you have to be pretty rough and tumble, carry your own weight and stand up to any trouble that might come your way. The Spittoon has a bouncer and try as he might, Sponge Bob cannot get past the bouncer. and through the batwing doors.
Why does he want to get into the Salty Spittoon so bad? Because the Spittoon is the coolest place in Bikini Bottom to hang out AND because the only other place in town spend, what I presume is your Friday night out is Weeny Hut Juniors. This is not the place to be seen. Weeny hut juniors is for little kids. It's a gimmick. It's easy. They serve ice cream, not manly spittoon stuff (whatever that is) and Sponge Bob is desperate to not be seen as a weenie!
So, he tries over and over and over again to get into the Salty Spittoon. He pretends to be a tattoo on a huge guy. He pretends to be another person. None of that works and he realizes that he has to be himself. Finally, he enlists the help of Patrick Star and after a little bit of craziness that only those two seem to conjure up, Sponge Bob is granted entrance into the Salty Spittoon. His dreams have come true. Of course things go wrong upon entering the Spittoon, but that's not the point of the story.
What's the point, you ask?
The point is this. I am always encouraging my kids to be salty spittoons and not weeny hut juniors. In our family we do hard things. We try and try and try again. We don't settle for easy. We don't whine and complain (that much) and we work hard to move forward. We set goals, we do what is right, we work around obstacles.
Living the last 5 months under the quarantine and looming uncertainty of the Corona virus (Covid-19) and making the tough decision to go back to school in a couple of weeks has been one of those tough "salty spittoon" decisions for our family. We weighed the options, talked among the five of us at length and made the best decision for our family. There is so much noise and static right now, and so much complaining surrounding the topic of going back to school it's hard to know what is the right choice. Honestly, I think it's one of the many factors contributing to my migraines and hair loss but that's a different story.
Mostly, there seem to be a lot of weeny hut juniors out there muddying the waters lately.
And finally, I just really like Sponge Bob Square Pants.
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