Your "I'm Terrified Beyond the Capacity For Rational Thought" Quizo Update

It's been a sort of weekend where a whole bunch of things happened that I was certain would never occur. This is fairly surprising when one considers the staggering vastness of my intellect and my ability to consider the most outlandish possible outcomes of any given situation.

Saturday afternoon, after going to the pub to watch the Manchester United - Arsenal match, which ended somewhat badly for the Gunners, I somehow ended up watching Brokeback Mountain.

Now Brokeback, understand, is a movie where I've never quite understood why I have it on DVD. The first recorded instance of this phenomenon was a couple years ago when, at the Best Buy in Moorestown, I bought the Special Edition DVD of Schindler's List with a bunch of other DVDs. I remember walking back to my car and stopping in my tracks in the middle of the parking lot. I pulled the movie out of the bag, looked at it, and said, "why did I BUY this?" I couldn't conceive of a situation where I would ever actually WANT to watch Schindler's List. Despite the aforementioned vast intelligence and imaginatory ability I couldn't see myself ever sitting around on a Saturday afternoon, bored, and saying to myself, "you know what, I feel like watching Schindler's List." Despite the movie's obvious quality it does not exactly top the list of weekend pick-me-up movies. Brokeback Mountain is the same kind of movie - great, to be sure, but not really something you'd ever look forward to watching.

I did end up watching my DVD of Schindler's List a couple years later, though to be fair I believe it was on a Tuesday night, and I was working at Best Buy at the time. This is a general life situation in which watching Schindler's List will actually improve one's overall mood.

I originally watched Brokeback on my computer when it came out - to this date one of only two films I have ever downloaded off the internet* - and I vaguely remember thinking when I bought it, "why am I spending 17 bucks on a DVD I'm never going to watch?" Saturday, though, I was going through one of the many piles of assorted media littered throughout my space, small mountains of books, DVDs, and video games it would take the National Geographic society to accurately map, when instead of the video game I was looking for** I came across my still-unopened copy of Brokeback Mountain.

For some reason I was possessed by a desire to watch it, possibly caused by the fact that it was still in two-year old shrink wrap. It is of course as good as I remember, but watching it didn't exactly put me in the best mood. I decided to go with my timeworn method of making myself feel better: spending money (aka adding altitude to said mountains of books and stuff).

On the way to the store I was stopped at a light across the street from a funeral home. Sitting there I noticed something outside the funeral home, on the patio.

"That can't be right," I said.

I looked closer.

"No, there's no way that's what I think it is."

I tried to squint a little to get a better look, but I was still seeing something that could not possibly be there.

"There's no fucking way," I said.

The light changed and as I drove past I got a close look at what was outside the funeral home. It was, in fact, the impossible thing I suspected from across the street.

A wedding party.

The whole bunch. Groom, bride - in what I assume was a Valentine's Day-themed dress of white with red highlights - groomsmen, bridesmaids, the whole whack. Standing around outside a funeral parlor and - this is the absolute kicker, the thing that drives it totally over the top and me insane - DRINKING CHAMPAGNE.

I can't live in this world.

JLK



* 1408
** Final Fantasy XII