There are people out there in the world who can go and watch a movie...any movie they want. I'm not talking about a movie on netflix or from the red box at the grocery store. I'm not even talking about those poor desperate souls that have to watch a massively edited, commercial laden movie from years ago on television (Usually a weird channel like "This TV" will show some random movie like Project X--the Matthew Broderick move, not the horrible party movie--and stuff so many commercials into it that its running time is now three and a half hours.) No, these people are able to see a new movie in a shiny, happy movie theater and stuff their faces with buttery popped corn and sip enchanted cola from silver goblets. Believe it or not, these magical beings do walk among us as....PEOPLE WITHOUT CHILDREN!!!
No, I'm not bitter or sad or anything of that sort. I love being a parent. I love everything about it. The coolest part is that I am the pop-pop. The secret of being dad is that you are always the fun one. As a father, I am the one running down the hallway with the toddler, leaping from the couch to the armchair, or arranging an impromptu treasure hunt using all of my wife's costume jewelery as priceless artifacts (We have enough plush snakes, monkeys, lizards and lions to make our hallway a pretty cool forbidden temple...at least as far as a two year old is concerned.) After goofing around and playing, I get to disappear into the abyss of work while my wife has to enforce the real rules and actually make sure our children are being well rounded individuals. Then I get to come home and set her work back a couple months by screaming....FOOD FIGHT!....right after my wife spent hours teaching the toddler about table manners. Yes, being a father is awesome. I just miss first run movies. Now our movie destination is the magical, mythical, quasi-illegal $3 movie theater. Yes, the movies are months old, the popcorn and hotdogs both taste like old Keds, and there is a mysterious, almost sentient odor that stalks theater 1, but god bless the folks that created a cheap, almost empty place a family can go to see a movie on a screen bigger than a laptop. On my birthday we finally saw Wreck it Ralph...amazing movie. Every single one of us loved the movie. It was quirky and clever for the adults with a lot of funny cameos, the teenager liked the plot and the smart mouthed Vanelope character, and the toddler loved the crazy visuals. The toddler loved the whole movie so much that she kept yelling "I wreck it!" on the car ride home. She even did a deep voice, trying her best to mimic the movie. On that car ride home, I realized that I'd rather eat Ked like hotdogs and step on sticky floors and even fight a living odor beast--if that's what it takes to be with my family and have a shared experience. I may not be sipping enchanted cola out of a black licorice straw, but I'm still living a blessed life.
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