New School
Last night marked the very first Halloween I spent alone. It also marked the first Halloween I didn’t dress up, the first one I spent sitting on the couch, the first one sans drunken party! These days, I’m all about rationalizing. Do I want to go out, get even more sick, be tired and cranky the next morning? Do I want to risk keeping Squid up past his bedtime, only to have him break down in an exhausted rage?
Mmmm…nope.
So, instead, I rented a bunch of scary movies and settled in for the night while my husband drove across the Bay to take my stepson trick-or-treating. However, being as I’m a total wimp, I chickened out on the horror-fest (American Haunting without a soul to protect me?!? No, thanks!) and watched E.T. instead.
E.T., as it turns out, is the perfect Halloween movie. And thanks to that little, squishy, greenish alien, last night not only marked the first Halloween spent alone, but the first Halloween I spent wiping tears from my face! Wait as sec., that’s not entirely true. I cried on Halloween in 1990 when I got my period for the first time around lap 2 of the annual costume parade at my elementary school. Luckily, I was dressed as a clown and sporting huge plaid balloon pants held up by suspenders. You know that saying about clowns: smiling on the outside, crying on the inside? Not that year.
But, back to E.T. Why, why, why hadn’t I ever seen this movie before? When I told my husband, he almost stopped traffic. “You what?!? You’ve NEVER seen E.T.? How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wow, you are gonna ccccrrrrryyyyyy!”
“No, I won’t.”
To that, he smiled and said, “Okay.”
Now, on most days, I’d do anything to prove him wrong. And yet, I shamelessly surrendered to that freaking Martian last night, and even the blanket I put over my head couldn’t muffle the choking sobs. Oh. My. God. When Henry Thomas says goodbye…the part when they all think E.T. is dead….you know what I’m talking about. When he says, “You must be dead because I don’t know how to feel; I can’t feel anything anymore” - that’s pretty much where I began to lose it. But, when he says, “I’ll believe in you all my life, everyday,” that’s when the whimpering basket case status really kicked in. Then, to top it off, he has to go and say, “I love you!” I mean , c’mon! Who in the world could hold it back?
On that note, please indulge me: which movie(s) have made you turn into a cryin’ fool?
November 1st, 2006 11:37
I was working as a cashier at a movie theatre when E.T. came out and all of us workers used to stand at the back of the theatre at the end of the movie to watch the people come out crying. I STILL cry whenever I watch that one …and The Color Purple, Beaches, Terms of Endearment …I could go on and on. Hey, a good cry is very cleansing.
November 1st, 2006 13:38
Peanut loves to watch ET! When she first started we got some ET candy (reeses bits) and put them in a trail to her room–she was so excited!
Steel Magnolias when sally field goes into the part about shelby dying….im a mad mess :(
November 1st, 2006 13:43
o, yes! i know that part, the one where she goes into how a mother shouldn’t outlive her daughter? i know, i cried and cried at that part, too!
November 1st, 2006 17:24
I cry throughout most of The Color Purple. Every single time.
November 1st, 2006 21:21
I sob like a baby when I watch Black Beauty. I am pretty stoic when people die but it and animal dies I loose it.
November 2nd, 2006 02:14
So many different parts of “Love Actually” and of course, “Armegeddon”.