Ohhh, Movies...

You ever sit around and wonder to yourself, "why is my life nothing like the characters' I see in the movies?" Well, luckily, my little brother and I were recently kibitzing about just that very subject, and we came up with a short list that only scratches the surface of why your life is nothing like movie characters' lives. In short, it's because filmmakers eliminate many of the daily nuisances that we have to endure. Take note:

1. In the movies, no one ever has any trouble finding a parking spot. Even in major cities. Think about how much stress that would relieve in your life.

2. In the movies, people usually don't lock their doors. In fact, often times, they don't even close the door at all. Amazing. Now, sure, many doors lock automatically when you close them, but just for argument's sake, imagine how nice it would be to live in a place where you didn't have to lock, or even close, your door. Pretty comforting, eh.

3. In the movies, no one says goodbye when they get off the phone. People just hang up mid-conversation all the time! Imagine how much better life would be if you just got to say or ask what you wanted, and then you got to hang up the phone without having the awkward, drawn-out, much-longer-than-necessary goodbye portion of the conversation. What a relief that would be! If I call my father, we have a three minute conversation, and then he spends 15 minutes saying goodbye. Ridiculous!

4. In the movies, people have sex in offices. Now, that's great in and of itself, but the part about that that's amazingly impractical is, they always, in a torrid fit of uncontrollable sexual desire, sweep everything off the desk. But they never deal with the fact that someone has to clean that up afterwards! That guy who just bent his secretary over his mahogany work station, will later have to sort through all those scattered papers, struggling to find yesterday's memo about some stupid, sure-to-be-unproductive-and-unfulfilling meeting, and the piece of paper where he wrote down what time his wife told him to pick up the kids from soccer practice, and the Post-It note with the phone number for the new dentist he wants to try out, etc... But we never see the fallout. Life would be much cooler if we could trash our desks, and not have to deal with the aftermath.

5. And finally, in the movies, there is NO clean-up after sex. Zero! Think about it. In every movie, after two people have sex (unprotected, of course--another great message), they just lay there in their own sweat and jizz. No one ever reaches for a tissue, or a towel, or runs to the bathroom. They just blissfully curl up in each other's arms, and proceed to have whatever serious conversation is needed to move the story forward. Seriously, in movies, there is no post-coital clean-up, and I feel like the film industry is perpetrating a grave injustice against the public, especially the youth, by not accurately portraying the shame, awkwardness, regret, or any other of those wonderful emotions that immediately follow god's gift to (wo)mankind. Any kid who grew up a movie fan knows how ill-prepared he was the first time he realized what a hassle condoms were, or that girls are "messy" too. Movies should be rated-R for strong language, nudity, drug use, and now, inaccurate and unrealistic portrayals of sexual activity.