I'm so not the hero today.

So the other night I was trying to think of something new to do after the umpteenth time of watching How it's Made reruns and I had the bright idea of watching The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with the kids.  See, we've been reading the book and it was on cable the other night, so I recorded it.

It was going to be perfect.  It was going to be great to see how the book differed from the movie and we could really work on story progression and character development---some things I've noticed that are becoming a weak spot for Alex as he's getting older.

"Hey guys, you know how we've been reading The Chronicles of Narnia?  Yeah??  Well, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was on cable last night so I recorded it.  Ya wanna watch it?"

"NO."  Came out of the older two kids mouths faster than me declining sex while on my period.  There are some thing I just don't do.

Anyway...

I'll save you all the gory details about how I bribed, wrangled, fed them popcorn in the living room, gave them money, got them to sit down long enough to watch the damn movie but we watched it.  I was happy.  Life was good.

Yeah, wrong.

A few hours later I hear Alex telling Lizzy, "I want to start doing things slow.  Like really slow.  That way things will be really boring and we can live longer."

What?!?  I could tell by the tone in his voice something was up.  Really up.

This continues all the way up to dinner time where Alex is eating slowly, moving slowly, talking slowly.  It was like stop-gap animation.  After turning into Sherlock-frigging-Holmes and practically a Dateline investigative report later, I finally wrangled out what was up his crawl.

I present to you the condensed version:

"Alex, why are you eating so slowly?  Does this have something to do with The Chronicles of Narnia?"

"Yeeeaaaah."

"Is it because the witch was mean?"

"Yeeeaaaah."  He starts sobbing.

"And because she turned all the animals into stone?"

"Yeeeaaaah, I don't wanna die.  I'm eating slowly so life can be boring.  It will make it appear that I'm living longer because I'm sooooo bored."

"Mkay.  Well, the good news is, you're not going to die.  The bad new is, you still have to eat your dinner."

See, in his mind all the animals the witch turned to stone were killed and dead.  Doesn't matter that Aslan breathes them back to life.  Oh no.  No, no, no.  Some of them legitimately died.  She kung-powed a few of them with her wand and they died where they stood.  Don't forget the few she blasted with her wand while they were flying and then, because they were rocks, smashed to bits when they landed.  Add to it at the end, Aslan basically eats the Witch and that pretty much sealed the deal.  It was all over.

Alex got the shit freaked out of him.

Thank you C.S. Lewis.

So I had a bright idea.

"Hey guys! Come on.  Lets go downstairs and watch Rango."

I was going to be a hero.  I was going to get him off death.  I was going to switch gears with another movie and I was going to save the day.

At this point in the action I have to tell you, I've never seen Rango before.  How bad could it be?  It had Johnny Depp.  I like Johnny Depp.  It was animated so it had to be safe.  And did I mention Johnny Depp?

I have never been so wrong in my entire life.

WRONG.  WRONG.  WRONG.

If you have ever seen Rango, you know my fate and are most likely laughing your ass off right now.

Rango makes the Witch in The Chronicles look like a pussy cat.  A fucking pussy cat.

To start off, Rango almost dies in the desert.  He lives, but immediately another character gets killed off.  Then another character gets killed.  And another.  At some point they have this fucking gun-shoot-em-up-rodeo-thing and there's a veritable blood bath of cartoon characters all being offed in rapid gunfire and puffs of smoke.

It was like the fucking Godfather of western animation.  They killed more characters than Pulp Fiction and to top it all off, there are these four snowy owls that make up a mariachi band all singing about Rango's demise and they never really shut the fuck up about the fact that he is going to die.

Can I get a big fuck you?

And last but not least, there is some shit kid-reptile-thing always asking Rango when he dies, "Can I get your boots?"

It was awful.  Just awful.

The whole time we were watching, it was like sitting in the middle of a four alarm fire.  "Did he die?  Mom, did he die?  Where'd he go?  Acccck, did they all just die?  They did die, didn't they???  Wait.  Oh no!  That one died too?!?  Accckkkk!"

The kids are sobbing.  I'm cussing.

In my brain it sounds like, "Fucking Rango.  Damn you Johnny Depp, I should have known better.  Come to think of it Alice in Wonderland was pretty fucked up.  So was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  Damn it to hell, I'm such an idiot.  Between you and Helena Bonham Carter, you make me look sane."

And that is how I single-handedly pushed my kid right over the edge of reason.  If we were at the Grand Canyon, not only did my kid do a swan dive over the edge, I was right there to shove him off.

Anyone want to watch some How its Made?