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Friday, January 26, 2018

The Other Movies

Last night I took Nicky and Daisy to the bonafide, real deal, tried and true Greatest Showman sing along.

I also went the night before.

I'm really going to stop now. Maybe... I've seen the movie seven times. It's overkill. I know.

In general, I'm not a big movie watcher, but I definitely prefer the theater to watching a movie at home. I can't sit through a movie at home (although the perk of watching a movie at home is that I can turn on the subtitles. Scotty and I watch everything with subtitles. One of these days I'm going to start using the CC device at the theater).

As we were driving home last night, I was wondering to myself if there is any other movie I have watched (or would have watched if I had the resources) seven times. Normally, I don't even watch seven movies in a year, let alone ONE MOVIE seven times.


I remembered that I have done this before. When I was 11, I went to see the movie Man of the House (currently on Hulu, FYI) about 5-7 times (I also went to see Tom & Huck repeatedly, but probably only 3 times).

As J.T.T. fanatics, my friend Cheyenne and I were morally obligated to see his movies as many times as possible. I have no idea how we got the money for movie tickets over and over again, but each weekend, someone would drop us off at the theater to watch Man of the House, and then we would call from a payphone when the movie was over, and someone would come get us (this in itself is quite a memory as I can't imagine dropping my 11-year-old off at a movie theater and leaving him there with a quarter to call me when the movie is over, and yet, when I was a child, that's just how it was. I miss that dearly).

When I remembered this, I told Nicky about it. Nicky asked me why I saw those movies so many times, and I explained to him my obsessive crush on Jonathan Taylor Thomas. I told Nicky how I had J.T.T. posters all over my bedroom wall and how I wrote him letters all the times and sent him pictures of myself. I told Nicky all the facts I remember about J.T.T. from the magazines I used to read (favorite color: green, religion: Presbyterian, favorite movie: A River Runs Through It, favorite subject: history). Nicky thought this was the most bizarre thing he'd ever heard.

Then came the questions (I can always count on questions from Nicky).

"Is J.T.T. still alive?"

"Yes."

"How old is he now?"

"He's Daddy's age."

"So he's an old man?"

"No. He's Daddy's age. Dad's not an old man."

"So you like grandpas?"

"Nicky! He's not old. He's just an adult now."

"Do you want me to get you some posters of grandpas to hang in your room?"

"You're really funny."

"I can't believe you have a crush on a grandpa."

"Nicky! He's 36. He's not a grandpa!"

And on and on and on...

Nicky is relentless, but he made a good movie date. I joke that it takes two hours to wind down after seeing The Greatest Showman. Nicky followed suit. He was singing and bouncing off the walls until about 11:30* last night, and when I tucked him into bed, he was still talking a mile a minute. Who needs an energy drink when a dose of Hugh Jackman will do?

*There are some things worth bending the school night bed time rules for. This was one of them. 

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