Movie Night

Movie Night      
       
     “Well, we got out of the store without doing more than the necessary damage to your billfold.”  
     “I needed a woman to divert me from my path to dietary apocalypse.”  
     “You need only omit one word, that being ‘woman’. Anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of nutrition would know that day-old pizza is unacceptable.”  
     “The surgeon general would concur I am sure.”  
     “Then why do I have to tell you what is obvious?”  
     “Perhaps because I am part of the unwashed gender.”  
     “Well even though you again interject gender into this conversation at least you are acknowledging that you have much to learn.”
     “Yes I do but now we have your delectable coconut bacon to replace my gastronomically brutal animal protein. What do you say we chow down?”  
     “First I need to appraise your refrigerator. If I must act as your schoolmarm tonight then let me do a thorough job.”  
     “Well then examine if you must. If I pass inspection it will be a miracle.”  
     “Indeed, look at your kitchen. The counters are caked in grease from a source I care not to know. Now please open the cooler door so that my eyes can roam.”  
     “Love how you phrase your instructions. This night is turning out to be a stroll through Webster’s.”  
     “I expect the Department of Health would shut down your mockery of all that is sanitary and sane for the Goddess’s sake.”  
     “Well, then take a peek. At least there is no crud caking the inner workings of my machine.”  
     “True, and look here. There is sushi which by the looks of it is the California roll vegan variety. But this inspection isn’t complete without a scent test. Though I am not a canine such as they have at the airport to smell for illegal substances some say I have a discerning olfactory sense.”  
     “Well, I can’t imagine how you’d object to my rice rolls complete with seaweed wrapping.”  
     “Ew. Now tell me honestly, how long has this mockery of all that is fresh and fair in this world  sat in your fridge.”  
     “Not past the expiration date for sure.”  
     “Are you kidding me? You, go by those arbitrary dates for edibility indicated by overworked people who process tons of food every day? Please tell me this is not your norm. Surely that Greek salad was bought today and meant to be consumed tonight.”  
     “Ok, I’ll tell you that.”  
     “I bet you would graze on that lettuce until it was so wilted you couldn’t stand it.”  
     “Of course, I might. But now I know better.”  
     “If this romance is to get off on the right foot then you simply must stop patronizing me. Be honest. Do you really have any sincere intention whatsoever of changing your habits? Or are you simply trying to placate me in order to get a kiss? I would lay odds in Vegas the latter is the operative factor.”  
     “Admittedly that is how my motives began. But I am seeing there is more to you than met my eye. You could instill in me values that go beyond the principles of sane dining.”  
     “Well, at least the wine is good. Wine gets better with aging, unlike most liquid refreshments. So let’s  
drink a toast to salubrious living.”  
     “L‘chaim, and bon appétit. I’ll drink to that.”  
     “You may yet pass muster in my boot camp for a healthy lifestyle. That has yet to be seen. But your cooperation has been most appreciated. For that, we can go through the preliminaries of light cousin kisses on the couch until the movie’s title sequence rolls by at which point I expect you to respect my need for total concentration on tonight’s entertainment. If you can get through this film on the gentlemanly preference for blondes without profaning Marilyn Monroe’s screen art then we are halfway toward the blue event horizon that could, possibly take us to a parallel universe in which you are the health food connoisseur you must become to win my heart.”  
     “Does that mean we forgo the pizza tonight?”  
     “Pizza will serve the purpose of an icebreaker. We’ll talk about how the modern pizza was first invented by Neapolitans as a tasty meal for workers on the go.”  
     “What will we talk about after that?”  
     “The nocturnal implications of listening to Ravel’s ‘Daphnis et Chloé’, you fill in the rest.”  
     “Pizza’s here. Out of respect for a venerable old tradition of ladies first, you may have the first piece.”  
     “Though the ladies first thing is a ritualistic way of keeping women down, I will accept the initial piece not because I in any way endorse that antiquated and chauvinistic ritual but rather because I haven’t eaten all day.”  
     “Glad your appetite is strong because someone has to finish off the side of breadsticks.”  
     “Are you implying that I am not curvy enough for you?”  
     “Nothing personal but women these days look too much like choir boys.”  
     “You want more sexual dimorphism like the Venus of Willendorf.”    
     “Those figurines were Rubenesque because they represented pregnant women.”  
     “So you must want me pregnant and barefoot?”  
     “Barbie has created a plague of anorexia.”  
     “You have it all wrong. Little girls are smarter than you give them credit for. They see the subtext of Barbie as surfing the gender stereotypes on her own journey into feminist role modeling. Beneath her slim and trim appearance is a warrior woman ready to unleash her ferocity on the patriarchy by rebuffing Ken’s advances when they are based on superficial and objectifying motives. She teaches girls that the sisterhood of women can include all morphologies. Indeed when women form bonds with their sisters they aren’t based on  physique and that blonde doll befriends all manifestations of the feminine form.”  
     “She teaches young girls that to be a blonde bombshell is the greatest aspiration in life for their gender. That is obvious.”  
     “What may not be obvious to you is that Barbie is just as likely to be a doctor and a lawyer who shatters the glass ceiling these days. She enters into professions once limited to the sacred brotherhood of gentlemen. Note that Ken is also a hunk in the physical sense so the playing field in that respect is equal. But this plastic woman embodies the hopes of dreams of girls everywhere to transcend the concepts of physical being into a spiritual sense of the mind and heart. You men do tend to get hung up on a woman’s appearance with those testosterone-addled fantasies. But we women have evolved beyond the standardization that men hold us to. Women come in all shapes and sizes you know.”  
     “Hopefully not anemic.”  
     “Pop the movie in and quit putting your foot in your mouth before it gets stuck there.”  
     “Here it goes. God that pizza is good even with only veggies and sauce per your instructions.”  
     “Hey the closing credits are showing so I’ll have another slice of that heavenly Italian food. But I see there is no more. You took more than your share!”  
     “I thought as a woman with less muscle mass you would want fewer calories.”  
     “There you go again making assumptions about us women with little basis. I am not obsessive or neurotic about my figure. Just because I am thin doesn’t mean I measure every morsel I eat. You think all women want to be slim as pixie sticks to please their men, how arrogant.”  
     “Would you like me to order another one?”  
     “Are you crazy? If I dine anymore I won’t fit through the door but how will we spend the rest of our evening?”  
     “We could watch the 11 o’clock news. That    
would appeal to your need to be aware of the pressing issues of our time.”  
     “The only thing pressed about those speaking suits is their starched smiles that beguile the masses with doublespeak designed to brainwash with dystopian lies.”  
     “Then let’s play scrabble.”  
     “Can your fragile masculinity take losing to me?”  
     “No worse than failing to get to first base with you.”  
     “Don’t give up for the night is still as young as a film noir starlet on her first cigarette.”  
     “Smoking isn’t sexy.”  
     “Antiquated customs have their charm.”  
     “Cigarette tar is as noxious as the smog in Manhattan.”  
     “You would have to smoke thirty cigarettes to inhale the equivalent of eight hours of breathing smog.”  
     “Let’s just get comfortable on this couch and breathe your perfume which has no carcinogens whatsoever.”  
     “Even my Parisian fragrance isn’t as sexy as that scintillating moment when Dietrich put a cigarette holder between her lips.”  
     “I happen to be the proud owner of a rare movie poster of Dietrich and Cesar Romero kissing in ‘The Devil is a Woman’ which is proudly tacked to the wall of my bedroom. Would you like to see it? That is if you can overlook his lamentable conservatism later in life.”        
     “Even dyed-in-the-wool daughters of Bolshevism like me can appreciate the symmetry of a man such as he. The prospect of gazing upon Marlene in such a pose with her Latin lover in the privacy of your bedchamber holds more than an academic fascination for me. Lead the way, good sir.”