Where's the Beef? Lessons From the Bovine World

NOT ME OR ANY OF MY FRIENDS...SO FAR


It's not really a tradition born of necessity or resulting from the downward spiral in the economy. It's not because, as a retired person, I'm on a fixed income. (face it, how many people do you know that AREN'T on a fixed income?). It's just that the convenience of having a movie delivered to my mailbox then picked up from the same spot without my paying postage is a no-brainer for me. For 10 bucks a month, my sweetie and I have "Movie Night" every Friday night down in the "Love Shack." Popcorn is cheaper from Orville, and the couch is 'way more comfy than any theater seating so it seems like a natural. And there's always the possibility that...On the other hand...
We don't always agree on the merits of a particular selection, and each of us has been known to sneak into our queue and change the order to fit what we want to see, regardless of the consensus ("Mama Mia" being a good example). If I don't like a flick, I just whine and complain about how stupid it is...if she's not happy with a particular movie (westerns, for example, or episodes from "Saturday Night Live" of fifteen years ago) my sweetie merely falls asleep. Of course, she's worked all week and it IS 7 p.m. on a Friday, so maybe she's entitled. Occasionally, though, issues arise that carry on for a while. So it was this week with the cow/bull issue.
Simply put, the movie "Someone Like You," is a romantic comedy and mostly exemplifies what we watch. The folks at Netflix gave it a 3.8 out of 5 as their guess as to how "we" would like it, so I should have been more leery. Ashley Judd stars as a woman who falls in love with a soon-to-be-single guy who (too predictably) dumps her and returns to the other woman; at this point, Judd's character posits this theory based on the similarities between men and bulls: a bull will never, ever go back to a cow he's been, uh, involved with...the bull will ALWAYS go off looking for the next one to come along...leaving the "old cow" for the "new cow." She applies this to men and via the fictitious person of an aging psychologist who never appears in public becomes the toast of the man-hating talk show circuit. The "all men are alike" thing got old about 10 seconds after it was evidenced, but that's not the point of this blog entry (and you thought there wasn't a point! Shame on you!)
THE POINT IS that throughout the movie, there were four, maybe five opportunities for my sweetie to gaze longingly in my direction and say something akin to, "Gee, honey, I'm sure glad I got the exception to the 'bull finds a new cow' rule...I love you." This, in fact, is what I expected to happen. I did not...not even close. When I mentioned the oversight, I was greeted with something like, "See, this movie wasn't as stupid as you kept saying it was! I heard you laugh at least twice! I should be picking ALL the movies from now on!" I was left alone to clean up around my stall, mooing unhappily; this was met with derisive laughter.
I'm finishing up here, then I'm going to put the seven seasons of "Saturday Night Live" back on the playlist.