If you know my wife then you know she loves her Dr. Pepper.  Her body has adapted to it in such a way that I believe she now needs it for sustenance.  Me?  All I need to get through the day is the strength of the Lord and the smile of my wife.  Kim?  Sure, the strength of the Lord part is in there, but Dr. Pepper must be added to the mix.

So as I embarked on my latest “run to the store and get Kim Dr. Pepper before her body goes into anaphylactic shock” mission; I was excited to see that each 12-pack of Dr. Pepper came with a free Redbox rental.  Now we can throw down on some Redbox, and when the time came to cash in on the first coupon my feelings were a wild combination of excitement and nervousness.

I was excited because the following movies were available: Wreck it Ralph, Skyfall, and Argo.  Three movies both of us have been eager to see since they were released.

“Then why were you nervous?”

Ah, therein lies the crux of this story of love and sacrifice.

As beautiful, intelligent, sweet, funny, and God-fearing as Kim is, there’s at least one thing about her I still haven’t figured out yet – she enjoys the Twilight series.  I saw the first one at a free screening before I knew anything about the craze, and I reluctantly saw the second one with Kim because it came out two months prior to our wedding, and I’m a wise man who knew that was a battle that wasn’t worth fighting at that particular time.  However, I made it clear that I’d given this ridiculous tale of humans, werewolves, and sparkly vampires enough of a chance and would not be dedicating any more of my precious time towards it.  Kim agreed, and I’ve been successful up to this point.

When the final installment was released, Kim’s plans with her friends to go see it always seemed to fall through.  Sadly, I knew the day was coming when it would be released on DVD, and along with its release I knew would come an insistence from Kim to rent it.

To her credit, she had allowed me to sidestep it a couple of times already.  But when I mentioned the other day that I was going to run by Redbox and asked what she was interested in, her response was, “You know my choice.”

After I threw a little mini-tantrum and formulated some bullet-proof arguments about the fairness of getting a movie that we would BOTH enjoy, she tried to convince me that I could just go ahead and get whatever I wanted.  I admit that she did not force me to get Breaking Dawn Part 2, but guys, if you’re married then you know it’s not always easy to just go ahead and get whatever YOU want.

So as I headed to Redbox I conversed a little with God and I may or may not have requested that He allow Breaking Dawn 2 to be checked out.  To my dismay, it was available.  I tried hard to make another selection, but it was almost as if my finger was supernaturally kept from doing so.  So yes, I went ahead and selected the stupid sparkly vampire movie.

Fast forward to the movie, and you know what?

“You were completely surprised and enjoyed the movie way more than you would’ve imagined?”

Nope.  It was awful.  At least I the first hour and a half was; that was as long as I managed to stay awake.  The acting, the stilted dialogue, the gag-inducing “love story” – it was all I could do to keep my supper down.  When Kristen Stewart somehow managed to – with a straight face – utter the line, “Nessie?  You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster?” my eyes rolled so far into the back of my head that a retina almost detached.

Honestly, “Nessie” is better than “Renesmee.”  Seriously, what kind of name is that?  I digress.

Anyway, after about 90 minutes of absolutely nothing of interest happening, and after playing all my games of Ruzzle, Scramble, and Words with Friends, I fell asleep.  Kim claims that things picked up after that and there was some cool fight scene and what not, but I’ll never go to the trouble to find out.  It shouldn’t take a movie 90 minutes to capture my interest.

I relay this story as a warning.  Guys, if you haven’t seen any of the Twilight movies yet and your spouse or girlfriend tries to talk you into it then just say no.  Have her sign an agreement releasing you of any responsibility of ever sitting through this series.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t ever watch one of “her” movies, but I do believe grace should be given in this situation.

And girls, I have no doubt that you will subject your man to the pain of some girly movie that he might or might not pretend to somewhat enjoy so as to not hurt your feelings, but this cheesy vampire saga needs to be taken off the list.  It’s the humane thing to do.

The moral of the story?  You should always love your spouse sacrificially, unless a Twilight movie is involved.  That’s the exception.

QUESTION

For those of you who actually like this series, let me ask one simple question – why?

For you guys who have been forced to sit through one of these, what movie did you make your wife or girlfriend watch as payback?

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