I need your help today, dear readers. And I don’t mean financially or kidney-wise, so don’t immediately grunt, “Leave me alone, Miss Clinical Strength Deodorant” and click away to some mommy blog that’s giving away a 12-pack of denim diaper pants. No, what I need from you people is far more serious than just a fancy body part or a few crumpled up 20’s.
I need your devious thinking.
Now, I know you’re probably all saying, “But Wendi, you have your own devious thinking. In fact, isn’t your thinking so devious that you once videotaped a brain surgery under false pretenses?” And yes, that is true. And, once again, I offer my apologies to the nameless neurological patient who had the bad luck to end up in my 1990 Portland, Oregon Public Access show “Dr. Bob’s School of Brain Sawin’.” (Believe me, I wish I were kidding about that.)
Anyway, the sad fact is that my current problem is so insurmountable, so daunting, so completely terrifying that I need big time reinforcements. Bad-ass back-up. An army of flying monkeys with keyboards and access to their neighborhood Wi-Fi passwords, if you will. Because this problem of mine can be summed up in four evil words: The Motherf*cking Snail Movie.
I am here to destroy you, Wendi Aarons.
Anyone with a child under 12 is right now nodding their head grimly and saying, “Ah, yes, the motherf*cking snail movie. SWEET BABY JESUS, THE MOTHERF*CKING SNAIL MOVIE.” Those of you without children under 12 are instead saying, “Ah, I knew it. She’s bitching about another kid movie. Jesus, just deal with it, Popcorn Thighs.” And yes, you’re 100% right. My popcorn thighs and I should just deal with it. In fact, what I should do is just give in to my kids’ non-stop requests and take them to see this fun Dreamworks animated movie. But holy hells and holy bells trust me when I say that my delicate North Dakota constitution is not strong enough for this demented animated snail shit. NO MY MAN, IT IS NOT.
My G-rated terror isn’t news to longtime readers of my blog (and FYI, if I ever call you “fans,” please kick me in the lady nads) because I’ve made no secret of my deep-seated hatred of all kid movies. Some of you may even remember my brutal honesty about that dark, scary day years ago when I tried to take my own life with a sharpened Mike & Ike shiv during a matinee showing of Space Chimps. I am not proud of this.
In fact, I sincerely wish I were the type of mother who actually enjoyed burp humor. The type of mother who loves seeing crappy and weak female characters get saved by badly drawn male characters. The type of mother who doesn’t turn to her children after a showing of Despicable Me 2 and say, “Well, at least the fart jokes outnumbered the plot holes this time.” In short, the type of mother who doesn’t tweets things like this:
And people wonder why I’ve never been invited to be one of Disney’s Social Media Moms.
Alas, my DNA and Norwegian Old Man personality ensure that I will never be that type of mom. Therefore, since my boys are begging me to take them to their 5th kid movie in a month a half, and since this particular kid movie is about a damn SNAIL who races or something equally as dumbass, I find myself in a tough, tough spot. Of course I’ve already given them every excuse I can think of to not go to this movie. EVERY excuse. Including, but not limited to:
– Mommy gets hysterical blindness whenever she sees or hears badly written scatological humor and therefore can’t drive and that means we’d have to walk home on the freeway
– Mommy has a new court-mandated ankle bracelet that doesn’t allow her near multi-plexes or fake butter product
– Mommy is deathly afraid of snails because of a French guy she once dated named Guy who did kinky, weird things with them—and
– Mommy feels that the sexual content in this snail racing movie is completely inappropriate for our Christian family values
But because my kids are not morons, none of those excuses have worked. Which is why today I even resorted to trickery with my friend Maria, who unfortunately isn’t a moron, either:
I actually considered her idea of leaving the boys in one screening room while I was enjoying myself in another screening room that didn’t smell like pee and Cheerios, but then I remembered that I’m a raging paranoid. Which means that ten minutes into the movie, I’d imagine the boys leaving the theater and getting into a windowless panel van with some guy who offered them free popcorn refills and a puppy and I’d start to choke on my supertanker of Diet Coke and cold-cock an usher while rushing out to rescue them and then we’d all wind up on the 10 p.m. news with the headline “40-Something Honey Boo Boo Look-a-like Terrorizes Snail Movie.”
So that’s why I need your help.
Please give me any and all excuses as to why I can’t take the boys to see “Turbo.” (Nothing illegal, please, unless you’re a lawyer.) I will try them all out, I promise. And even if they don’t work and I wind up sprawled on the sticky movie theater floor screaming, “No more snail trail jokes! No more snail trail jokes!,” I will still be grateful from the bottom of my little R-rated heart. Thank you.
Your friend,
Popcorn Thighs
Bribe, pay or blackmail an older kid to take yours to this “wonderful” slug filled movie. It is one of the good things about being divorced – I always left it up to their dad to take them to the movies. It gave him something to do with them on his weekends.
FML I took my girls to see THE F*CKING SNAIL MOVIE today and have been despondent ever since. Tell your kids this – there’s no reason to go to THE F*CKING SNAIL MOVIE because, in the first half, “Turbo” has run in with a lawn mower and from then on it’s just a montage of bloody flashbacks to the tune of Dumb Ways to Die. The end.
* a run in
Wow, I just let my 10-year-old go off to the movies with her brother and 3 other neighbor kids without even thinking about the creepy old guy who might sit next to her in the theater. Thanks. I’ll just breathe into this paper bag until she gets back.
Tell them Daddy said he would take them to the snail movie. Then tell Daddy as you’re running out the door to go anywhere else.
Be frank with them. Tell them you really don’t want to go and see it, but you’ll do it if, in return, they’ll do for you something they really don’t like, such as 10 chores each, then you’ll take them.
Make ’em earn it.
Then take two tablespoons of concrete and harden the f*** up 😉
My first thought was to invest in an arm-sling, and feign some injury that means you can’t drive, and then I thought that may not be sufficient, so added an eye-patch and a surgical collar.
I know you are an honest woman Wendi, so it may just be better to be true to yourself, and throw yourself from the roof. If you land on a snail, all the better!
Four words: “Because I said ‘no.'”
Oh sure, they’ll hate you forever (or at least until the next horrible kids movie comes out) but at least you won’t have to sit through the snail movie.
Sorry, boys.There was a huge furor on Twitter and the studio canceled all showings because it’s racist.
OK, this one’s a little complicated but I think it’ll work. Find a copy of the Rex Harrison version of Dr. Doolittle. Show it to them but run out of the room crying every so often. In the final scene riding the giant snail scream and cower in a corner. Claim snail phobia. How could they not understand? That whole movie is creeptastic.
http://www.urbansitter.com. Somewhere in Austin there is a college student that you can pay $20 an hour to take your angels to see the snail movie. Save her # for Smurfs II.
“The movies went out of business” always worked for me in re Chuckie Cheese. Good luck, pop.
Take or make a picture stating that the a/c is out in that theatre and they cancelled the snail movie.
I’ll take them to Turbo if you take my kids to Smurfs 2. I don’t really want to die young, but I can’t imagine any other outcome.
Suppose you could sell the concept that there was an “incident” at Red Lobster involving the f*ing snail and some nice garlic butter dip??
Offer up the Lone Ranger instead? I realize it might not be much better, but it’s not animated and at least there is Johnny Depp.
OHH or, tell them sure, but they have to pay for their tickets, and yours! It will take them months to pull $30 out of the couch cushions.
Make a deal with them, if they will eat escargot for dinner, then you will take them to see the movie. Be sure they are watching the cooking of the snails. Might work?
I’m in your same boat. My littlest asks every day to see this.
I don’t want to see this, but I’m not of the mental fortitude type to let him see a movie without me due to same said paneled van paranoia BUT I have consoled myself with the reviews. Critics like it: they say smart dialogue and clever plot twist. I will be open minded and remind myself that one day, I’ll miss having someone to ask me to go to animated movies. I know I will.
If I do the dead man walking before you, I’ll let you know how it goes. xo
Mommy suffers from Molluscophobia. It’s real, it sounds scary and you can probably convince them it’s contagious.
“Did you know that snails are both a boy and a girl, or rather neither a boy nor a girl? Yes, I know it’s really confusing, that’s why I am concerned as you are growing up so quickly that it will be especially confusing you to you. Now, I am perfectly okay if you want to be like Leslie (RIP), but I am not sure you want this weekend to be the weekend you make that choice. Do you?”
My almost 9-year-old saw MU last week and won’t stop talking about it. I mean I won’t talking about World War Z but that’s zombies, damn it.
She keeps saying “I want to go to college at Monsters University” so I snapped yesterday and said “Dude! It’s fictional and Billy Crystal and John Goodman are laughing at you and my $9.50!”
I’m available for children’s parties.
I am refusing. Sitting this one out faster than I said THE HELL IS YOU SMOKIN’ when they asked to see Chipmunk ANYTHING. It’s totally a Grandpops movie. Totally.
Here are some very valid reasons to give for not going:
1. Snoop Dogg/Lion (nuff said)
2. Create a fake press release announcing theatre __ showing Turbo burned down. Just that one theatre. It won’t be repaired. No other theatres are showing it. Because they all think it sucks.
3. It is unlucky to see movies that start with the letter T.
4. Snails were harmed in the making of this movie. DO YOU WANT TO HARM SNAILS? HAVEN’T I TAUGHT YOU BETTER?
5. Slugs were harmed in the making of this movie. (BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SNAILS AND SLUGS).
6. Seeing more than one kid movie a year will make you go blind. It’s called retinal dystrophy. It’s not really. THEY DON’T KNOW THAT.
7. Draw a chalk outline of yourself and cut letters out of a magazine for a note to the kids: this is where your mom’ll be lying if you make her see Turbo.
8. Bad plots make your hemorrhoids flare up.
“The Snail/Slug is the mascot of UT’s arch-rival – UC Santa Cruz. It’s already been hard enough having them accept us from California, and you really want to go see at anti-UT movie? Yeah, I know ____ saw it, loved it and his dad is a former UT linebacker, but, don’t tell him I know this, but his mom is an Aggie at heart – she got kicked off the Aggie cheerleading squad for grazing in too many fields, so to say, and that’s the only reason she ended up at UT. Anyway, back to why you hate UT and why to you want to embarrass our family this way?”
Classic Wendi Popcorn Thighs Aarons.
p.s. The answer is always that theater has headlice.
Tell them you are waiting to see it when it hits the dollar movies then forget. I tell my kids that all of the time. But they already know that there are some kid movies that are worth full price at the movie theater and some that are worth dollar movie prices. Then get an older kid to take them to the dollar movies for you. Or tell them to wait for the DVD.
I hate children’s movies too. That’s one reason to be glad I don’t have young children. My 19 year old wants to see World War Z. Luckily he can go see it on his own. Maybe you should teach your kids how to drive.
Tell them the AC is broken. Surely they know you won’t go if it’s hot.
Tell the boys it’s like Bambi and you can’t handle any more movies where the mom dies
Tell them ‘no’. Plain and simple. This is the 5th movie they’ve begged you to see in a month and a half? No. Tell them it’s mommy’s turn to pick the weekly family activity and it doesn’t involve a movie about a snail with a jet pack up his arse. Take them somewhere else. Paint pottery or go to a museum. I swear kids movies make the younger generation more brain dead everyday. Simply tell them no. You’re the adult. You don’t need a reason other than “because I don’t want to see it”
I’ve never related more to blog post. Thank you for your validation.
PS – go and take a nap, that’s what I did during Monster’s U.
–>I always tell my son it’s not out on Netflix yet but ….. {Fill in the blank} just came out so we’ll get that next. We’re always behind anyway so he’s happy because he’s never seen {Fill in the blank}.
deb
Tell them your petition to the movie theater owner to install a Margarita Slush O’/Lush O’ Matic machine has been repeatedly ignored and you must boycott said establishment until they rectify this situation.
tell them PG movies are for pussies and escort them to Grown Ups 2.
Buy tickets for each of your kids, plus one or two depending on the victim(s) you choose. Think of someone like a favorite babysitter, a grand parent if they’re close, or a teacher if you know them personally. Someone who loves your kids and your kids like, too. Then give them a “present” of a day out (it should come from the kids, with them presenting it so it can’t be refused). Maybe throw in a gift certificate for popcorn and a drink. Then they give this “gift” of an outing to someone they love…how can they possibly refuse to take the little cherubs? If you can make it a thank-you gift for investing in their futures yada yada yada, so much the better.
What’s wrong with getting free popcorn and a puppy?!
I’m gonna take out the AC in your theater. That should get the butter melting on the popcorn in 4 seconds. You’ll get vouchers to a new movie.
HELLO? Don’t sit in another theater and worry about the boys. We can see anyone who is abducting the kids right from the bar at Alamo on Slaughter. When should I meet you?
If you make me go to the mofo snail movie, I’ll make you EAT snails for a week!