I don't know how I allow Boyfriend to talk me into these things. I know I sound like a really dumb teenager sometimes, but I'm really not. That is, I am neither really dumb or a teenager. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, I totally knew better deep down. I knew it was a bad idea. I knew I was walking straight into a trap, and like a moth drawn to the candle's flame, I didn't fight it.
See, it all started like this.
Boyfriend: Hey! I found my copy of The Shining!
Me: The Shining? What's that? Some alien movie?
Boyfriend: *sigh* I can't be upset that you don't know that. You avoid a lot of movies. It's a really old horror movie with Jack Nicholson.
Me: What, the guy that looks crazy because of those really pointy eyebrows?
Boyfriend: Yeah, that's him. So can we watch it?
Me: Good God, Boyfriend! You remember what happened last time I watched an old scary movie!
Boyfriend: Oh yeah....*chuckles*
*start flashback*
It was late one night, on a Tuesday. I didn't have work the following morning, and I wasn't the least bit tired when midnight rolled around. Boyfriend was in bed next to me, playing a stupid computer game. Something with soldiers on a beach. Probably some world war two game. Don't those always open up on beaches? Like that movie Finding Private Ryan or whatever it was called.
Anyway, I found myself flicking through channels, and I found a movie just rolling through the opening credits on AMC. I like a lot of older movies, so this seemed like a good thing to watch. I figured I would eventually become drowsy and could just turn the TV off and go to bed. Unfortunately, this was not a normal movie.
The title should have given it away to me. I should have turned it off and watched the Nanny on Nick at Nite. Instead, I watched The Amityville Horror. I'd never heard of it, but it's evidently based on a true story.
Long story short: a psycho man was tricked by the Devil into murdering his whole family in his house. The house was built on some sort of portal to hell where demons could take over you or something. There was a poor priest who got sick because he tried to bless the house. (Really? Who has a house blessed when they first move in? Did anybody ever really do that?) Obviously the Devil just doesn't like blessings on his portals. But whatever. So the man was locked up in a mental facility, released...and he married a lady, and they bought the house where he'd murdered his family, and then the Devil started talking to him again.
But somehow in the end they all escaped and they left the house together and George was no longer crazy because they Devil couldn't reach him outside of the portal. Or something. The ending is really vague to me. Only the terrifying moments in between are clear. Like the flies. God, the flies really grossed me out. And the voice. Most people think the voice was cheesy. So not. It worked on me.
The thing was, I was so engrossed in NEEDING TO KNOW HOW THE STORY ENDED that I couldn't change the channel. I couldn't bring myself to look away or turn it off because not knowing is worse than knowing. So I sat through the whole thing, my heart racing, my hands all sticky. And after it was all over, despite how old the movie was and how I knew my apartment couldn't possibly be a portal to Hell because there is no hell, I was terrified.
I turned the closet light on. I turned the TV to Nick at Nite and let the sounds of the Nanny mask the silence in the room. And I couldn't sleep. For three nights I caught only the smallest snatches of sleep, always jerking awake at the sound of movement or if Boyfriend moved in the bed.
*end flashback*
Boyfriend: Well, you don't really need to be afraid of this movie. It's really not even scary.
Me: Boyfriend, I had nightmares for weeks about the Ring, and you said THAT wasn't a scary movie. Obviously, our definitions of scary are not identical.
Boyfriend: It's an OLD scary movie. Like Psycho. It's just not scary.
Me: Boyfriend! Psycho scared the living crap out of me!
Boyfriend: Seriously, Chanel, it's about a man and his family and they get snowed in a hotel by themselves and the man loses his mind. It's not scary.
Me: *feeling like it's a bad idea* Okay...
Thirty minutes later...
You can only see my eyes peeking out over the top of the blanket. I'm snuggled so close to Boyfriend he's almost falling off the bed, and I keep trying to get closer to him and further from the TV, which is just pushing him closer to the edge. I can't look away.
And I can't sleep for the rest of the night. I'm terrified that some psycho ghost is going to try to convince Boyfriend that I'm going to betray him and he's going to try to chop me up into little pieces with an axe.
It's going to be a long week.
IN ADDITION: As a general rule, I don't mess with my blogs after I post them. And another general rule I have that isn't really spoken but is something I actively try to follow is to avoid commenting on politics and law. Seriously, most people just end up angry. BUT, something I overheard today really rubbed me the wrong way, and so I thought I'd just speak my mind on the subject, since I'm pretty sure only one person reads this anyway. Lone reader, I'm sorry if I offend you.
So what happened was that somebody came in talking on their cell phone (which is totally rude, by the way, when you're talking loudly on your cell phone in a store so that everybody can hear your conversation) and I overheard (couldn't really help it) something she said.
"Oh my God, she was totally drinking while she was pregnant. That's why the baby is all fucked up looking. It doesn't matter that she didn't know, she totally should be brought up on criminal charges for that! It's illegal!"
God. The idiocy I witness every day.
First, if the girl didn't know she was pregnant and drank, it really wasn't her fault. She didn't do it intentionally. And before you jump in and say, "Well how the hell do you not know you're pregnant?" I'll explain. Not every woman has cravings, gains weight, misses periods...sometimes there are literally NO symptoms of pregnancy until...oops, there it is.
Second, it is NOT illegal to drink while pregnant. Yeah, it's a really fucking bad idea if you're planning on keeping your baby full term. Because, you know, drinking does cause problems (sometimes deformity) in an unborn fetus. It's merely highly recommended that you DON'T drink. No law on that because you can't tell a woman what she can or can't do with her body. Even when she's pregnant because, guess what, an unborn fetus is not a person.
Even if someone KNOWS they are pregnant and drinks despite the knowledge, there can be no legal consequences. Why not? Well, the law says a fetus is not a living human being until it takes a breath. So any damage you do to your baby before it is born is not abuse, neglect, or anything else illegal because you're not inflicting harm on a person. It's just really fucking dumb and selfish.
Now, there are some people who believe that life begins at conception, blah blah blah. You can believe that and know it in your bones, but the law says differently. So you can be morally outraged all you like, but the law is what rules, not morality. And what a woman decides to do with her body is her choice. The only action you can take against a mother is having CPS (or whatever you call child protective services in your state) investigate after birth to make sure the baby is not being neglected or abused after it's considered legally alive.
Anyway, I just thought I'd clear that up. You know. In case somebody didn't know. And for the record, I don't approve of drinking while you're pregnant. But I respect a woman's right to control her body in any way she sees fit.
See, it all started like this.
Boyfriend: Hey! I found my copy of The Shining!
Me: The Shining? What's that? Some alien movie?
Boyfriend: *sigh* I can't be upset that you don't know that. You avoid a lot of movies. It's a really old horror movie with Jack Nicholson.
Me: What, the guy that looks crazy because of those really pointy eyebrows?
Boyfriend: Yeah, that's him. So can we watch it?
Me: Good God, Boyfriend! You remember what happened last time I watched an old scary movie!
Boyfriend: Oh yeah....*chuckles*
*start flashback*
It was late one night, on a Tuesday. I didn't have work the following morning, and I wasn't the least bit tired when midnight rolled around. Boyfriend was in bed next to me, playing a stupid computer game. Something with soldiers on a beach. Probably some world war two game. Don't those always open up on beaches? Like that movie Finding Private Ryan or whatever it was called.
Anyway, I found myself flicking through channels, and I found a movie just rolling through the opening credits on AMC. I like a lot of older movies, so this seemed like a good thing to watch. I figured I would eventually become drowsy and could just turn the TV off and go to bed. Unfortunately, this was not a normal movie.
The title should have given it away to me. I should have turned it off and watched the Nanny on Nick at Nite. Instead, I watched The Amityville Horror. I'd never heard of it, but it's evidently based on a true story.
Long story short: a psycho man was tricked by the Devil into murdering his whole family in his house. The house was built on some sort of portal to hell where demons could take over you or something. There was a poor priest who got sick because he tried to bless the house. (Really? Who has a house blessed when they first move in? Did anybody ever really do that?) Obviously the Devil just doesn't like blessings on his portals. But whatever. So the man was locked up in a mental facility, released...and he married a lady, and they bought the house where he'd murdered his family, and then the Devil started talking to him again.
But somehow in the end they all escaped and they left the house together and George was no longer crazy because they Devil couldn't reach him outside of the portal. Or something. The ending is really vague to me. Only the terrifying moments in between are clear. Like the flies. God, the flies really grossed me out. And the voice. Most people think the voice was cheesy. So not. It worked on me.
The thing was, I was so engrossed in NEEDING TO KNOW HOW THE STORY ENDED that I couldn't change the channel. I couldn't bring myself to look away or turn it off because not knowing is worse than knowing. So I sat through the whole thing, my heart racing, my hands all sticky. And after it was all over, despite how old the movie was and how I knew my apartment couldn't possibly be a portal to Hell because there is no hell, I was terrified.
I turned the closet light on. I turned the TV to Nick at Nite and let the sounds of the Nanny mask the silence in the room. And I couldn't sleep. For three nights I caught only the smallest snatches of sleep, always jerking awake at the sound of movement or if Boyfriend moved in the bed.
*end flashback*
Boyfriend: Well, you don't really need to be afraid of this movie. It's really not even scary.
Me: Boyfriend, I had nightmares for weeks about the Ring, and you said THAT wasn't a scary movie. Obviously, our definitions of scary are not identical.
Boyfriend: It's an OLD scary movie. Like Psycho. It's just not scary.
Me: Boyfriend! Psycho scared the living crap out of me!
Boyfriend: Seriously, Chanel, it's about a man and his family and they get snowed in a hotel by themselves and the man loses his mind. It's not scary.
Me: *feeling like it's a bad idea* Okay...
Thirty minutes later...
You can only see my eyes peeking out over the top of the blanket. I'm snuggled so close to Boyfriend he's almost falling off the bed, and I keep trying to get closer to him and further from the TV, which is just pushing him closer to the edge. I can't look away.
And I can't sleep for the rest of the night. I'm terrified that some psycho ghost is going to try to convince Boyfriend that I'm going to betray him and he's going to try to chop me up into little pieces with an axe.
It's going to be a long week.
IN ADDITION: As a general rule, I don't mess with my blogs after I post them. And another general rule I have that isn't really spoken but is something I actively try to follow is to avoid commenting on politics and law. Seriously, most people just end up angry. BUT, something I overheard today really rubbed me the wrong way, and so I thought I'd just speak my mind on the subject, since I'm pretty sure only one person reads this anyway. Lone reader, I'm sorry if I offend you.
So what happened was that somebody came in talking on their cell phone (which is totally rude, by the way, when you're talking loudly on your cell phone in a store so that everybody can hear your conversation) and I overheard (couldn't really help it) something she said.
"Oh my God, she was totally drinking while she was pregnant. That's why the baby is all fucked up looking. It doesn't matter that she didn't know, she totally should be brought up on criminal charges for that! It's illegal!"
God. The idiocy I witness every day.
First, if the girl didn't know she was pregnant and drank, it really wasn't her fault. She didn't do it intentionally. And before you jump in and say, "Well how the hell do you not know you're pregnant?" I'll explain. Not every woman has cravings, gains weight, misses periods...sometimes there are literally NO symptoms of pregnancy until...oops, there it is.
Second, it is NOT illegal to drink while pregnant. Yeah, it's a really fucking bad idea if you're planning on keeping your baby full term. Because, you know, drinking does cause problems (sometimes deformity) in an unborn fetus. It's merely highly recommended that you DON'T drink. No law on that because you can't tell a woman what she can or can't do with her body. Even when she's pregnant because, guess what, an unborn fetus is not a person.
Even if someone KNOWS they are pregnant and drinks despite the knowledge, there can be no legal consequences. Why not? Well, the law says a fetus is not a living human being until it takes a breath. So any damage you do to your baby before it is born is not abuse, neglect, or anything else illegal because you're not inflicting harm on a person. It's just really fucking dumb and selfish.
Now, there are some people who believe that life begins at conception, blah blah blah. You can believe that and know it in your bones, but the law says differently. So you can be morally outraged all you like, but the law is what rules, not morality. And what a woman decides to do with her body is her choice. The only action you can take against a mother is having CPS (or whatever you call child protective services in your state) investigate after birth to make sure the baby is not being neglected or abused after it's considered legally alive.
Anyway, I just thought I'd clear that up. You know. In case somebody didn't know. And for the record, I don't approve of drinking while you're pregnant. But I respect a woman's right to control her body in any way she sees fit.
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