My childhood crush on Scrooge McDuck

He was my favorite Disney character.

As a budding feminist, I should’ve favored Minnie Mouse – but she wore ugly, clunky high heels. I could tell they were instruments of patriarchal torture.

Some kids liked Goofy or Pluto, but I could barely tell them apart. Were they dogs? They seemed droopy and stupid. I was right about Pluto, whose planet was later dropped from the solar system. What a loser.

Mickey Mouse was cloyingly cheerful. I grew up in New York, where we didn’t cotton to that I’m-as-corny-as-Kansas-in-August shtick. Besides, he changed wardrobes, lost his tail and stopped being mouse-like. A traitor to his species.

I adored Scrooge McDuck, the miser who reveled in his mountains of coins. He’d dive in “like a porpoise,” burrow “like a gopher” and toss ’em high so they’d hit him on the head.

He dressed like a tycoon and never pretended to be good.

This Christmas, in his honor, I’ll yell “Bah, humbug!” and drop some quarters on my head.

But I won’t eat a duck. In spirit, Scrooge was really more of a turkey.