Everything I needed to Know

I learned from an 80s movie.

I'm thinking about changing this blog's name to Theresa's Nostalgic Lists o' Fun.
But anyway, as you may have guessed I wasn't the most popular kid in school when I hit those awkward puberty years. A number of factors contributed to this, right now I can think of a few reasons:

1. My mom was a 3rd grade teacher, who sang in an embarrassingly high falsetto during our weekly choir practice.
2. My bikes were always bought at garage sales and as a result I rode around on a frosted purple 2 speed with a giant panda on the handlebars until I was 15
3. I liked the movie Scream so much I wrote a slasher screenplay in the 5th grade and saved my allowance to buy fake knives and stage blood for the production.
   
4. I liked the movie The Craft so much I formed a coven with Rachel and Jessie in the 6th grade.

That list goes on, but for now I think you get the picture. Anyway since in the 8th grade a majority of my three friends found themselves 8th grade boyfriends to play Nintendo with on Friday nights I found myself pretty dateless on the weekends. But the good thing that did come out of this, I watched a lot of movies in my teen-years.
Every weekend I would go to the local Movie Mart and rent about 5 VHS tapes to watch. Add microwave popcorn, Hungry Howie's pineapple pizza and a 2 liter of coke and you have got yourself a weekend.
I think I can say I was successfully raised by movies. And no decade of film making makes for better life lessons than the 1980s teen movies. One day I'll show up at John Hughes's doorstep and introduce myself as his daughter, maybe he'll set up a trust fund for me.

Lets look at what my adolescent Friday nights have taught me.

1. Pump Up The Volume
Fuck the establishment! This movie was like an infomercial for emotional Blog rants 10 years before the word "Blog" had been invented. Christian Slater calls out the man on his AM frequency station every night by jacking off to his microphone as "Hard Harry". And hey, who said the FCC was boring? This movie makes them look less FCC and more FBI. With one of the most exciting slowly driving around Arizona while trying to maintain radio frequency chase scenes ever the movie goes down in my childhood memory book.

How it shaped me: I now have an irrational fear whenever an honors student comes anywhere near a microwave oven.

2. Footloose.
After I saw this movie for the first time I pulled out my mom's old cheer leading outfit, moved all of the furniture out of my family room and held a high school dance. Dancing, illegal? I knew I wouldn't want to live in that world so I thanked Kevin Bacon by playing his stupid game more times than it ever should have been played.

How it shaped me: Whenever I come across a staunchly religious person I assume they won't like me because my dancing is to hip for them.

3. Die Hard.
Okay, It's not a teen movie really but I spent enough time watching this as a kid that it should be mentioned on the list somewhere. I even made up a game where I was a cop stuck in a hotel full of terrorists who I had to fight with only my Vtech computer and nerf riffle. (See? No Friends.) This is still my favorite Christmases movie, my brother and I bought the series this break and are making it a tradition to watch all 4 while getting drunk on Christmas day.

How it shaped me: Whenever I am faced with a problem, I consider one of my options to blow shit up.

4. Can't Buy Me Love.
This move confirms that underneath every nerdy looser white guy there is a ripped beefcake just waiting to emerge.

How it shaped me: I will never spill eat or drink anything now when I steal my mom's white suede outfits.









5. War Games.
I still want to be a hacker because of this movie. When I was 12 years old I didn't need look any farther when it came to learning the dangers of the arms race and nuclear annihilation. This movie was like my own personal Daisy ad for scary government and war rooms.

How it shaped me: I still believe that Mathew Broderick could take over the world if he had a IMSAI 8080 and the codes to some video games.

6. Some Kind of Wonderful.
It's like pretty in Pink except Duckie gets the girl, but in this case Duckie is a tomboy with a set of drums named watts and even though Keith wasn't particularly nice to watts until he gave her his date's diamond earrings Watts still ends up the winner.
This movie also taught me that pretty and popular girls will go on a date with a looser after enough badgering. But once she gets freaked out that her date painted a portrait of her for the first date and hired their punk rock friend to dress up like Hoke Colburn and drive her around around all night she will pass you off on the first single broad she sees.

How it shaped me: I still want to make out with someone wherever I get my oil changed.