You Know You're Old When...

I've seen like 10 movies in the past 10 years, and probably 9 of them starred animated characters whose paychecks were signed by Mickey Mouse. I just don't have the attention span required to watch a movie at home. If I'm going to the theater, I'm probably taking a kid with me.

It's a character flaw, I suppose. At least, that's what people who speak in movie quotes say because I never know what they're talking about. Alas.

The weird thing is that the movies I've seen are not the right movies. I mean, I've seen Dude, Where's My Car? but not The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. (And, if I'm being honest, I had to google to find the name of a movie that came out in the past ten years that people would be familiar with. I HAVEN'T SEEN ANY OF THEM.) I end up seeing the wrong movies because life is random and I do weird things like pull up stuff on On Demand and then watch whatever pops up first.

The TV is background noise for me. See also: attention span says what? SQUIRREL?

On Friday I did exactly that - I opened up On Demand, navigated to the first free movie I saw, and then promptly stopped paying attention. I ended up picking Hush because writer lady main character action blah, blah, blah.

I admit I didn't really read the description. It didn't seem like an awful choice, though. It's not like I was going to pay attention to it.

Except that I did.

Mila, she of many cuddles, was all "I'm not sleeping in my bed" and I was all "Yes, you are" and she was all "Nope. I'm sleeping on you KTHXBAI." I ended up giving in because there are some battles not worth winning (remind me that I said that if she's still sleeping with me when she's in college). At first she was content to just lie on the couch next to me so I could get some work done, but then she was all "NOOOOOOOOPE. In your arms, lady. Do the mom thing."

So I did. I held her. She fell asleep. Cuddles are good.

When my hands are occupied, I can't chase squirrels. Just as I accepted that fact, the movie right in front of my face flipped from happy little conversation between two women to stab-murder-blood-awfulness.

Just.

Like.

That.

Soooooo ... I'm officially too old for gratuitous violence. I might have been okay if it had been more pretend-like, but it was full on scary dude in the middle of nowhere stabbing a lady and ACK. Fake murders aren't any cooler than real murders and can't we just all be nice to each other? Please? And then things got more murderous and WHY WAS THERE A HORROR MOVIE ON MY TELEVISION MAKE IT STAAAAAAAAAAAHP.

But there was a sleeping baby in my arms.

And I couldn't reach the remote.

And I decided that there was no way the heroine wouldn't end up the heroine because of course she had to defeat the scary guy with the knife because otherwise there wouldn't be a movie. Also, sleeping baby.

I had to stick it out.

As much as the whole movie was making me want to curl up in a ball and hum Kumbaya, I had to keep watching because it was all going to work out just fine. Nobody else was going to OH EM GEE HE KILLED ANOTHER PERSON AAAAAAACK.

I mean, I don't learn. But I had to stick with it so I could see the writer lady prevail and I couldn't risk waking Mila and ...

Well ...

Basically I started using Mila as my security blanket. You can't be a complete disaster when you're holding a sleeping baby, plus I swear that kid can protect anything. She bites, you know. So if murderous creepy dude was going to leap out of the movie and show up in my living room, I was prepared. With a biting toddler as my weapon.

Just shoosh. I know it doesn't make sense.

Nor does it make any sense that I'm making Mila sleep with me for the rest of forever because obviously I'm scared of the dark now. It's a good thing she has sharp teeth that will keep me safe.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

throw the demon baby doll at any intruders! I don't do scary movies either.

As far as movies go, if it ain't Disney or Super Hero I have not seen it. I did take Charlie to see Hidden Figures though. LEGO Batman is next on the list.