Stranger than fiction

There are times when a bad memory serves me well. I’m grateful, because there are so many other times when it doesn’t… like this evening, when my wife asked me to take out the garbage for the second time.

“Yeah, don’t worry Cheryl. I’ll get it.”

Three hours later, when we’re going to bed…

“I thought you said you’d get the garbage!” She says this stooped over the can, irritated that she’s forced to get a little more value out of this particular bag.

In between garbage incidents we sat down to watch a Netflix movie. In order to truly appreciate this entry, you must understand our Netflix strategy. First, you must understand that I’m a sucker for a preview. (I wonder if this is because the plot of many feature length films are better suited to two minute previews.) I make regular stops at the Apple website to take a gander at the previews being offered. When I see one that strikes my fancy, it goes on my Netflix queue… and there it sits, for months. Six months to a year later, the movie gets released, inches up my queue, and arrives in my mailbox. By this time I haven’t got the faintest clue what the movie is about, or why I decided to put it on the queue.

Let me tell you, sometimes that is the best way to watch a film. Some of my all time favorite movie experiences started out with a Neflix disk popped into the DVD player. Tonight was up there on the list. We saw Stranger than Fiction, with Will Ferrell. The credits rolled and I couldn’t shake a silly grin. It was the perfect movie for my mood this evening. It was something a little different… completely unexpected, and wonderfully funny.

Give the gift of words.