Yesterday's fake Friday had left me feeling drained, so when I got home all I did was flop on to the couch and shut down. I was idly flipping through channels when the remote slipped out of my hand. The station I had stopped on was playing the movie 'Rumor has it...' Because the remote was now out of reach I just let it play.
Forty-five minutes later I was groaning in pain at the estrogen beams this movie was shooting at me. It was 98.999% pure chick flick. The men are all bumbling idiots. The women are all emotional wrecks. As soon as I heard the phrase "I did not mean to sleep with him!" I actively began groping for the remote. Alas! It was just out of reach. Finally I knew I had to take drastic measures to change this channel before an ending so sappy appeared that I would become encased in it forever, like a fly in amber.
No, I did not actually get up from the couch. Instead I used the force. Straining with my mighty brainpowers I actually caused the remote to slide across the floor and into my waiting fingertips. Then with a cry of triumph, I stabbed the channel up button. I was free!
Alas, the universe was cruel, for the next station was playing 'Big mommas house 2'. I almost cried.
Actually, I hate Martin Lawrence. I despise the man. If I met him in an elevator somewhere I would pimp slap him. He is one of those people who you wonder both why and how they keep making movies. He's the black 'Earnest'. And it seems like every time I go to the movies there is a preview playing for yet another one of his movies. I once read an article about how he felt he did not get good enough service on an airplane, so he climbed up on a server cart and took a shit on it. That action is completely in line of how I perceive this man.
I had a dream last night that I was driving an old VW bug across country, and I parked on the side of the road to get out and look at a house I had seen in my dreams. (That happens a lot in my dreams; I see something and I think 'I dreamed that somewhere' and the irony that I am dreaming never occurs to me.) While I was out some backwoods redneck cop impounded my car. I wandered the town looking for a way to make some money, however the town was only populated by 'children of the corn' type kids. Except instead of worshipping corn gods they were moping around like goth kids. This tale has no point. The dream had no point. I have no point.
Here's one tough cat.
2026 Update
Dialing the machine to June 2006, where a dropped remote becomes a Jedi trial and Martin Lawrence a personal demon.
Ah, 2006. A glorious time when television was a buffet of channels and a dropped remote could trap you in a cinematic estrogen swamp. Now the remote is a talking rectangle that also holds your entire life, and the television is a subscription hole that auto-plays the next insult before you can mourn the last one. The “channel up” button is extinct; we have thumbs, but they are busy scrolling. And those comedies? They didn’t disappear, they metastasized into algorithmically selected “content” designed to keep you supine, just like you were on that couch. The dream about the goth Children of the Corn is the most coherent part of this post, which says everything. Also, in 2006 a celebrity relieving himself on an airplane service cart was a scandalous article; by 2026 it would be a livestream with a sponsorship and a merch drop. You didn’t use the force, Ed. You gave up and the universe punished you, as it always does. The only thing that hasn’t changed? A man would still rather believe he has Jedi powers than stand up.
“2006 Ed, why did you include the airplane-cart story about Martin Lawrence in a post about chick flicks, and did you genuinely believe you moved that remote with your brain, or were you just too deeply couch-rotted to stand up?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, fair question. The Martin Lawrence thing wasn't really about chick flicks, it was about the night getting worse right after I escaped one horrible movie and landed in another. I was already groaning and cranky, and seeing his face again just pushed me over the edge. So I threw in the airplane-cart story because I'd been saving it in my head as proof that the universe is run by a prankster, and that night it felt relevant. As for the remote, I honestly don't know. I want to believe I moved it with pure brainpower, but the more likely answer is I eventually grunted and shifted my leg enough to nudge it. I was couch-rotted something fierce. Still, it felt like a victory, and I'm not giving that up.
