Don't even think about it

The other day, a married co-worker, let's call him Pat, was getting a little weary of work. He sighed and said, "We should all just skip this afternoon and see The Dark Knight", which is the latest Batman movie.

While this was certainly possible with minimal work repercussions seeing as we have very flexible work hours (within reason), I knew Laura really wanted to see it.

"I would, but I can't. Laura wants to see it." I said.

He nodded and said, "Yeah, my wife wants to see it, too. I supposed I could go and not tell her."

"Oh! Don't do that!" I said. I have a good reason.

When you're single, you are the master of your own domain. You basically can call the shots and do whatever you want, whenever you want, to a certain degree. As a single person that's also a twin, you have that luxury of doing those things with your twin, like seeing a movie, but it's also your responsibility to ask that twin if they want to see it with you first.

Most of the time, Bill and I would see movies together, but occasionally, he'd surprise me by saying that the had an opportunity to see a movie without me (because I was working or wasn't around) and so he did. I never came out and said it, but I was always a little disappointed because now I'd have to find someone else to see a movie with me. Usually, this wasn't a problem. Sometimes, it was another friend who was bored. Sometimes, it was Bill, who agreed to see the movie again with me. And to be fair, I would also do this from time to time with a little disappointment, but no long-lasting repercussions.

Seeing a movie that you know that your friend or brother may not like is of no consequence. If they agreed to go, you assume that he was on board and willing to see it. If it was great, you rejoice that you picked the right movie. If it sucked, you could agree that the movie sucked without trying to figure out who actually suggested the movie.

If you drag your significant other to a movie that sucked, you'll proceed to hear about it until the end of time. Laura will usually say something like, "That was a great! (sarcastically)", "Nice suggestion! (sarcastically)" or "Well that sucked! (not sarcastically)."

When we were first dating, I dragged Laura to see Escape From LA, which is the sequel to Escape From New York. Both movies involve the convict Snake Plissken, who was played by Kurt Russell. In the first film, Snake is recruited to rescue the president of the united states from New York City, which had been turned into a city-wide prison in the not-so-distant future. I loved that movie growing up and had high hopes for the sequel, but it sucked so bad that I almost walked out of it. Laura was almost ready to leave with me, but I just had to see how it ended, which was horribly by the way. I apologized a lot that night and was reminded a few times by Laura on how just how bad it was.

About a month later, a movie called Two Days in the Valley came out. Laura wanted to see it. I was up in the air about it because it looked like it was trying to be like Pulp Fiction, and I was afraid that I would be comparing the movie to Pulp Fiction. Laura won out and we saw it. The movie was about a hired killer who likes to give someone a a minute on a stop watch before he kills them (James Spader), his girlfriend (Charlize Theron), a woman who hired the killer (Terry Hatcher), two undercover cops (Jeff Daniels and Eric Stoltz) and various other stars that all intersect in lame plot lines for two days of story. Halfway through, Laura leaned over to me and whispered yelled, "This is dumb! I want to go!"

I shook my head, "I want to see how it ends."

I've never walked out of a movie on purpose (save for when Julia demanded we leave a kid's movie because she was scared), so I just wanted to see how it ended on principle. It was an okay movie all in all, but certainly no Pulp Fiction by a long shot. The ending was okay. As we were walking out, I turned to Laura and said, "We're even."

So back to what I was just talking about earlier...

Laura and I have had this understanding that if one of us says that we want to see a movie together, then it behooves the other person to not see that movie.

I slipped up once on this rule, and I still hear about it.

That was ten years ago...

Ten years ago, I was on a book-buying trip for the Nebraska Book Company. I was one of those guys that would buy back books from the students on college campuses. My trips would occur in December and May to coincide with the end of the campus semesters. Before I left in May of 1998, Laura noted to me that she wanted to see Deep Impact, the movie about a comet that is going to hit Earth unless some astronauts can blow up it up first.

While on the trip, the guys that I was on the road with all said they wanted to see a movie, which was Deep Impact. So I made the decision to just see the movie and act like I hadn't seen it when I got back.

So I saw it on the road. It was a decent movie. I then came home and saw it with Laura. When the movie was over, Laura said, "That was pretty good." What I should have said was nothing, but what I did say was, "Yeah, for the second time that I saw it."

I smiled. Laura did not.

"You've already see this?" she asked.

"Yeah, I saw it on my trip with the guys."

So you would think that this would be the end of that, but now almost every time a movie comes out and she wants to see it with me, she usually reminds me that she doesn't want to me to see it like I saw Deep Impact without her.

She reminded me of this just recently when I said that I wanted to see The Dark Knight, which I was thinking of doing when she was gone in Kearney visiting her parents. She said, "I want to see it. Don't see it like you saw Deep Impact."

"Are you always going to hang that over my head?" I asked.

She walked away and shrugged as if to say, "Hey, you're the one that messed up. Not me."

So back to me talking to Pat, I said, "I still get grief for seeing that crappy movie without her and that was 10 years ago!"