Chick flicks, immorality, and my need for a life.

So last night, Saturday night, Ian was at a friend's, Derek was out with his girlfriend, Courtney was grounded because of being out too late the weekend before, Brandon and Connor had a friend over, Cassidy had a friend stay over, Liam was at a birthday party, the little girls were at a different birthday party, and the only ones who had nothing at all to do were me and the 5-year-old, and of course, grounded-girl.

So what does one do with absolutely no money, when Redbox means gas, and Justin stole back his Netflix account?  Borrow movies from your teenage daughter's friend: Chick flicks.  Fast forward to four hours of my life I will never get back.  Or as T.S. Eliot said, "Where is the life lost in living?" 

First we watched this one.  I think it was rated PG.  Obviously it's about two girls getting married.  At the beginning of the movie, they are both single.  And both living with their boyfriends.  They are both planning their dream weddings and end up with the reception being on the same day, so they can't be each other's maid-of-honors, and they try to ruin each other's weddings because neither one will give up her dream.  Such treachery as sending the other chocolate in her fiance's name, so she'll get too fat to fit into her wedding gown, or sneaking into the tanning salon to make the other orange are what the women resort to.  It's petty, juvenile, materialistic crap.  And boy do I feel guilty for not having spent that time reading a good spiritual classic.

However, I sat on my butt for another two hours and watched this one, which of course was worse.  What is it about getting sucked into a bad storyline that just makes you unable to just hit eject?  The woman in this story hires a male escort to accompany her to her sister's wedding so she can make her ex-boyfriend (who is the best man), jealous.  I'm sure you can totally predict what happens.  I will give it away anyway, and ruin it for you, because I wouldn't want to advocate any of you actually wasting your time or conscience on this one.  She falls in love with the escort, only after sleeping with him, of course.  Her parents put them in the same bedroom, her middle-aged mother didn't want to appear "stodgy."  Of course every single dress or outfit worn by every single female in the entire movie was, to the the least, skanky.  Every last one.  Even the wedding gown. 

Give me Pride & Prejudice anytime.  There is nothing more sexy than a man who doesn't expect a woman to sleep with him before marriage so they can try each other out.  There is nothing more sexy than leaving to the imagination what is thrust in most every audience's face nowadays.  Usually I go to Kids-in-Mind or the imdb parent's warning site's to thoroughly check out a movie before I let it into my house.  These however, were PG, and most of the kids weren't home.  What could be the problem?  It just goes to show how immune and unaffected mainstream audiences are to premarital sex, cohabition, immodesty, materialism, and downright lack-of-values.   

I have to not let my boredom get the better of me.  I don't have television for the very reason I shouldn't have been watching these movies last night.  Sometimes one is too exhausted to do anything but veg in front of a screen.  Usually at the end of a day, my picking up a book is insurance I will soon be asleep.  I can't tell you how often we have run through The Waltons and Little House series, while I crochet, knit, or iron, to keep from feeling I'm wasting time. 

"Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do."
Gian Carlo Menotti

I need a life.  And here I will digress a little.  I have a dear friend who struggles with infertility, yet has an amazing husband.  I have amazing children, yet struggle with loneliness.  Through many years of self-help books, homilies, and lectures on Catholic family living, it has been preached that one's husband is more important than one's children, long after your children are grown and gone, your husband will be there. 

Hence my reason for needing a life outside of my children and trashy Hollywood mainstream movies.