Hop AWAY As Fast As You Can

James Marsden must really have needed the work.

On Easter Sunday Conlan and I went to see a matinee movie. Going to the theater has become one of our few bonding opportunities without his little sister underfoot constantly demanding everyone's attention. Conlan (age 6) got to pick the movie.

He selected HOP.
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I am an adult who will readily admit to a love of animated art form. Often times I prefer to see an animated film over the other live-action selections at the theater. Not this time. I had a sinking feeling going in that I wasn't going to find the experience enjoyable based on the fact that I hadn't found the trailers even moderately interesting. Everyone knows they show the best bits of the film in the trailers.

But it was Conlan's pick and I didn't try to dissuade him.

Uck. About halfway through I was hoping Conlan would say "I'm bored. Can we go now?" I would have happily sacrifice the $15+ admission. Unfortunately, he didn't despite my prompting "Are you bored yet? How 'bout now? How 'bout now?" every 90 seconds.

And they say today's children have a short attention span. What. Ever. That kid has a scary, laser-like focus.

Three-quarters of the way through I was ready to stab a spork in my own eye just to end the suffering.

Finally, mercifully, the credits rolled and we headed home in a colossal thunderstorm that had water pouring across the back-country roads in rivers. As we advanced on one of the a larger bodies of water flowing across the road, Conlan quizzed me on how to  traverse it in order to achieve the "cool" end result of water shooting over the hood of the vehicle onto the windshield in blinding sheets. Setting the windshield wipers on Ludicrous Speed, we yelled like invading Viking barbarians as we approached each puddle.

Disclaimer: I don't want you to think that I was behaving irresponsibly with a child in the car. I wasn't. I'm not a complete idiot. We live in the country. I have a Jeep with water-shed tires and an outside oxygen intake valve. We were belted in. We were driving under 10 miles an hour. We didn't drive into water that I wasn't completely aware of the depth of before starting across. We weren't fording unknown, hippo-infested rivers in Africa. We had to get home and puddle jumping was going to be a necessary part of the journey no matter which route I took. We just added the yelling and the windshield wipers to make it more exciting.

Later when I asked him what his favorite part of the movie was, after several seconds of intense deliberation he replied, "The ride home. Oh, and the Twizzlers."

Man, I love that kid.