Movies have a strange power.  For me, the worse the film, the better I feel about myself after I leave.  For example, after watching Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, I had the most fantastic day.  I think it is because bad movies give the viewer a skewed perception of reality, whereas good films either closely reflect real life or are so good at reimagining a fictional universe that the viewer cannot even begin to picture such a fantastic, fictional world.  A good example of a good recent film is Inception.  I couldn’t bond with the characters because I had no idea when the film takes place.  Everyone dresses like it’s the 1950s, but also there is a machine that lets people share the same dream.  I can’t identify with any of that.

I just got back from seeing a movie called Just Go With It. I saw it with a female friend and I think that we were the only two people in the theater that weren’t on a date.  Of course, maybe everybody was with a platonic friend of the opposite sex while assuming that everyone else was on a date.  Either way, it was depressing.  It was so clearly a date movie and I was so clearly not on a date.  The movie was not very good, but romantic comedies always give me an extra boost of confidence for about half an hour after the film ends.  If Adam Sandler, who today is 67 years old, can win over a really hot blonde and Jennifer Aniston, maybe I can find the confidence to call a girl and ask her to a bad movie.

So, immediately after the happy ending of the movie, I went straight to my phone.  I called a girl that I never had the guts to ask out.  She picked up and sounded very ill.  I freaked out and asked what was wrong, and she eloquently told me that it was 3 am on a Tuesday night.  Time!  I never think of time!  Why did I see a midnight showing of an awful movie on a work night?  But I’m still on the phone, and I am not going to back down this time.  So I ask her out, knowing she will agree because she is half asleep.  The next day I play back the tape of us talking because I apparently tapped the phone line* because I knew she wouldn’t believe that she agreed to a date with me.  Apparently, tapping a phone line and harassing people in the middle of the night are not the way to a girl’s heart.  They are, however, a horrible way to win a date that will end up being extremely uncomfortable.  I suddenly wake up and realize that this entire scenario was a dream that I had so that I would have backup material in order to write an impromptu blog post that won’t offend anybody.  Then I wake up again and realize that it was all a dream within a dream, and that I am actually the President of the United States.  I veto a few bills and go to bed.

*Can you even tap a cell phone?  I don’t even know how to tap a real phone.