Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll finds MOVIE CLICHES COME TO LIFE. She writes:

I have never been a fan of horror movies. The few I have seen have either been horrific enough to give me nightmares for weeks or so silly and unrealistic as to put me to sleep. But even more than that, I have a visceral reaction to people, especially women, behaving stupidly. And that is a major feature of horror films. (That is also why I don’t watch The View.)

In countless horror films there is a scary house that has scary music on a loop at all hours of the day and night. A creaky noise is heard and the lights go out. Before the frightened occupant lie at least two options. One: run out the front door to your vehicle, lock it, drive away as fast as you can. Ideally, do NOT flood the car when you start it and, if possible, have a weapon in the console and another in an appendix holster. With, you know, those eight rounds per bullet that our totally unimpaired President was talking about. That is, as I said, Option One.

Option Two: go into the basement (or into the attic if you are in a silly non-basement state like Arizona…) all alone with one stubby, flickering candle. Preferably also wearing a long clingy nightgown that makes it difficult to fight or run.

How does this relate to real life? Well, the recent election showed that a man I have long admired – President Donald J. Trump – decided to go with Metaphorical Option B in a horrific election.

Option A: He’s a smart and clever guy. He could help craft brilliant ads that would translate to pretty much any Republican candidate, talking about love for America, its energy dominance just a couple of years ago with accompanying low gas prices. Opposition to child mutilation. Closing the southern border. Inflation. Support for the police. Against crime. He could part with a few million pesos in his vast War Chest to buy ad space.

OR, Option B, three days before said tough election, he could diss potential running mates and primary competitors alike, taking childish shots at the man who turned Florida red, and even threatening to “tell stuff about him that even his wife doesn’t know.” Classy! And after the dispiriting election, dissing several more people in a long, rambling, Ted Kaczynski-style single-spaced screed on Truth Social.

Oookay, he chose Option B. Stipulating that my own Dad did not drink, defending Trump for 6 years, I feel a little like the adult child of an alcoholic who has spent a lifetime offering excuses for Dad. I still have enormous admiration and gratitude for the man and I will still vote for him if he is the nominee. Especially against Biden, whose highlight reel of yelled and whispered gaffes should be a feature film by then, roughly the length of Dancing With Wolves AND Gone With the Wind. But c’mon, Man! I fear President Trump may have damaged himself beyond repair. It makes me sad because it was all so unnecessary. Again I repeat, lest I be misunderstood: DJT is exponentially better than most Republicans and ANY Democrat. And I will vote accordingly.

It’s not only horror films that show the actors making ridiculous and unlikely decisions. Those plotlines infest “thriller” and “suspense” movies as well. For some reason, women also figure prominently in these bad decisions. Let’s say there are terrorists with AK47s on the front lawn. The husband, a good guy rogue CIA agent, whispers, “We need to RUN out the back door, across the patio and into the car I have cleverly stashed on the next street over for just such an emergency. Be quiet, follow me, and RUN.”

And the woman, maybe a plucky girlfriend but usually the annoying wife, chooses that moment to say: “We need to talk.” And Susan, the irritated viewer, yells at the TV, “No, you need to run. If you survive, you can then discuss whether or not you need to ‘work on’ your relationship. For now, you need to work on your sprinting skills.”

Perhaps the silliest of these situations occurred in the popular series 24 about Jack Bauer. Our dearest conservative friends were devoted to this series and even held regular social events to watch it together. Joe and I watched part of one season and were not fans.

Jack Bauer’s daughter was a certifiable idiot, routinely calling him on his cellphone during important covert missions to tell him the equivalent of picking up a quart of milk on his way home after being tortured. In one ongoing plotline, a serial killer was IN THE HOUSE and the daughter just barely slipped away from him but then – no, I’m not making this up – she ran back for her hair dryer, an item that can be purchased for under $10 at any Walmart. That was the last episode I watched before I was tempted to root FOR the terrorists.

For reasons that I cannot fathom, and in fact which hurt my feelings, this “Failure to Immediately Obey the Husband In Case of Danger” is a major fear of famous novelist Max Cossack, to whom I have been married for 392 years in dog years. He is convinced that in some existential emergency I WILL NOT LISTEN to him! That I will want to argue, debate and possibly discuss why he does not make the bed carefully so that the sheet does not hang below the bedspread like its slip is showing.

Just because when we were very young and riding the El, he begged me not to make any eye contact with other riders, and I not only smiled and chatted them up, but invited some of them home for dinner? Just because in New Orleans I felt it was rude not to follow a group of scamming street yutes at night down a blind alley? What was this urban guy to do with a small-town naif bred to be friendly to all?

One more movie cliché — the one that Max Cossack perhaps hates the most. An actor is surprised by events and says – say it with me, now – “WHAT THE…?” He never gets the chance to finish with “heck” or any stronger word because either some alien has emerged from his stomach or the girl he thought was a friend turned out to be a Russian hit woman and has just plunged a fake umbrella into his heart.

As much as Max hates “What the…?” it’s often all we can think of to say looking at the evening news. The cultural assaults are relentless and shocking. Here, is a “family-friendly” drag show for the kiddies that involves a dildo ring toss event. Which raises the obvious question, “Unless you are talking about the Manson Family, what would it take for something NOT to qualify as ‘family friendly’?”

Here, a father is dragged off from a School Board Meeting by the local gendarmes because he had an issue with his daughter being assaulted by a thug in a dress. There, a kindergarten teacher tells TikTok that every single child in her class wants to transition to a different gender. And then the obese, blue-haired charmer claims there are more genders than Obama’s 57 states.

In almost every horror movie at some point the hapless woman victim realizes that the Evil is not distant. It is, in fact, COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!!!

I will submit to you that a lot of the Evil abroad in the land today is not only coming from inside the House but also the Senate. In the last few days, I have read many articles by prominent “Republicans” who want me and my ilk gone from the Party forever. We are potentially spoiling their grift. Hey, guys, Remember the Whigs. And you think you can EVER win another election without us MAGAs? Suddenly, it becomes crystal clear that several of them have no interest at all in winning! They like things just the way they are.

What the…?

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses