No Home Alone for You

One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is getting to watch my Christmas movies.

 

Other movies you could watch at any moment of the year.  Assuming of course that your kids don’t suck every ounce of life from you during the day and after they go to bed you actually have the staying power to sit down and watch a movie.  It doesn’t happen here…but hypothetically speaking you could watch any movie at any time.

One of my favorite Christmas movies is Home Alone.  The first one.  Actually, the second one is good too.  By the time they got to the third though…WTF! Knock it off.  Anyway, the first is the best by far. 

As with any holiday tradition that you enjoy, I am waiting for the day when I can sit down with my kids and watch that movie and laugh and laugh.  I know they would get a kick out of it and I would love it even more watching them enjoy the movie alongside me.

But not this year.

I’m not sure when I’ll feel safe letting Carter experience Home Alone but I can definitely say I’m not there yet.  I have a few good reasons…

1.       The Line “Look what you did, you little jerk!”

Because it will undoubtedly become his new favorite thing to say.  To Grant. 

And don’t little brothers have enough to worry about without having shithead lines hand fed to their tormenters by Hollywood? 

2.       The maternal guilt factor in this film is just not fair.

Seriously, the mom is freaking the hell out and going crazy and the dad is all like “Whatever, we’ll get there when we get there…anyone have a crepe?”

Hello! Dude, why is your wife the only one who cares that your young child is home alone?  At very least I think my husband would be paranoid that Carter would break something in the house that he would eventually have to fix.  So he’d want to get his ass home if only for damage control purposes.

Moms have enough trouble being guilty about mundane every day matters.  Do we have to put up with this crap when we watch movies too?  The film basically says “Hey Moms, everything that goes wrong ever in life is your fault.  YOU’RE the one who put him in that attic in the first place.  NO ONE ELSE has any responsibility here whatsoever.  You deserve every second of polka music that you had to endure.  Merry Christmas ya filthy animal!”

3.       The police in this town are completely worthless.

God forbid you take more than two seconds to look around the house.  You must be so busy enforcing law in suburban Middle America that you couldn’t POSSIBLY do anything besides ring the doorbell to investigate this matter. 

Police officers are among Carter’s heroes.  I want him to call on them in times of need instead of saying “Eh, I saw Home Alone…they aren’t gonna really do anything anyway. That kid was stuck in his house for days.”

4.       I routinely scare the shit out of him by threatening to leave the house without him.

Before watching Home Alone:

“Put your coat on…”

“Let me just make this guy do a back flip first.”

“Put your coat on now or I’m leaving without you…ok…bye.”

“NOOOOOO!  Ok, I’m putting my coat on!”

After watching Home Alone:

“Put your coat on…”

“Let me just make this guy do a back flip first.”

“Put your coat on now or I’m leaving without you…ok…bye.”

“Ok, see ya.  I’ll just sled down the stairs and eat pizza while you’re gone!”

If he thinks being home by himself is going to be a blast I lose all credibility.  I need this card.  I play it often.  I once actually pulled out of the driveway without him because he wouldn’t put his shoes on.  I thought his head was going to explode he was so upset. The therapy bill for that one is gonna be large.  Whatever, he put the damn shoes on after that…worth it in my book.  How else would I get  his ass out the door most days?  He must continue to believe being left alone in his house is a bad thing. Screw you Kevin for making it look like a party.

5.       Um…EVERYTHING KEVIN DOES TO THE BURGLERS!

Hey , Cart! Here is a bunch of dangerous yet HILARIOUS shit for you to try!  Blow torches are a ball!  Have you tried making someone step on a nail lately?  Good times, good times. 

I know for a fact that if I let Carter watch this movie his evil genius brain is going to start working overtime.  I will actually expect smoke to come out of his f’ing ears because he’s so busy plotting how to throw together any one of the extra super cool booby traps that he just viewed. 

I’ll have to start sleeping with one eye open…and flicking water on all my doorknobs to test if they’re hot. 

So yeah, I’m not ready for this yet.  Maybe next year. But probably more like when he’s 25…and doesn’t live with me anymore.