You Say It’s Your Birthday

Today is my birthday. The photo is a movie poster from a 1981 film that I never heard of. That’s not surprising as the genre is not my cup of tea, however in the early 80s so many movies of this type seemed to be hitting the theaters. The most successful of the gory, thriller movies at the time was American Werewolf in London, which had been highly recommended to me by my mother, who if you may recall from a post earlier this year, had some odd tastes in movies. I thought of neither of these mother-related facts when Vicki and I went to see it way back then.

We sat in the theater in front of a few couples, or they sat in back of us. Before the movie started, the guys were laughing and howling, trying to and succeeding in annoying their dates. This was supposed to be a very scary movie, and would not normally be one that I would go see, so I was also unamused be their antics. As we waited for it to begin and the guys continued to try torment their dates, Vicki asked, “Are you sure we should be seeing this movie?” “My mother saw it and she really liked it,” I replied. Then I thought for a second and added, “Of course, she saw The Exorcist three times and thought it was funny.” Vicki turned to me with a look of horror, and as the lights dimmed I swear I could still see the whites of her eyes bugging out at me. It occurred to me as well that I had just taken the advice of a certified nut job (she wasn’t actually certified at that time, that came later), and dragged my dearest friend with me.

The movie had us all on the edge of our seats from the get-go, and the howling, laughing boys behind us were surprisingly silent. The whole theater was silent until one scene in which a couple was going to dinner at a friend’s and were obviously targeted as the next victims. “Oh no, get out of there,” I heard someone say. “Oh no, oh no,” the voice repeated. It wasn’t coming from the screen, but from the seat right next to me. “No, please,” Vicki was begging for the couple to be saved, out loud. “They’re young and in love,” she said. I don’t think she could help herself, and the thing was that the commentary seemed to work well with what was happening on the screen. No one shushed her. And she continued to voice her terror throughout the movie.

I had known Vicki for nine years or so by that time, and had been to the movies with her quite a few times. This was a behavior of hers that until that night, I had been unaware. The movie was a really good one, but did not entice me to want to see other gory thrillers. Shortly there after, we had a small dinner party at the house in Huntington, and when everyone decided to watch one of these cheap slasher movies, probably on HBO, I decided to do the dishes. Even though one of the guests had volunteered to clean up afterwards so I could join them, I explained that it was a good excuse for me to not watch, but they should please enjoy Vicki’s company. And sure enough, as I washed dishes and cleaned the kitchen, I could hear the movie, hear the silence from its small audience, and then hear Vicki saying, “Oh no, get out of there.”

Here’s something really cute. I went to Google and the image has birthday candles. Who’s birthday are they celebrating? Jimi Hendrix, Carolyn Kennedy. No. It’s me. Well, that’s what the banner reads. When clicked on it just goes into events of the day including birthdays of those more famous than I like Hendrix and Carolyn. I also share my birthday with Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Urkel.

BTW – A big change to the Sunday line-up has been made. Sunday evenings, just to refresh your memories, is when I do a full workout that usually lasts about 1 hour 13 minutes. After voice stretching and warmup, I have been starting the aerobics portion with Missy Elliot’s “Dog in Heat.” With apologies to Miss E, she has been replaced with none other than “Heard It Through The Grapevine” by Gladys Knight and the Pips. Twice. That adds an extra 30 seconds of aerobics.