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In the 80's I was 16 and dating a guy named Ken. Ken wrote dark poetry and wore all black. He was moody, brooding and intense. Everything I wasn't. Girls like me weren't supposed to date guys like Ken and that is exactly why I did. Ken fascinated me; he talked of wanting to live in the desert, surviving only on love and his ability to write soul shattering poetry. He had a tattoo and had even pierced his own ear using an ice cube and a stickpin from his Mom's sewing kit. Ken was hardcore and I wanted to be around it!
One Saturday night we decided to go up to the local video store to rent a movie. The popular place at that time was Good Guys Video Rental. It had all the videos the other places wouldn't carry. MICROWAVE MASSACRE, BLOODSUCKING FREAKS and COLOR ME BLOOD RED were just a few of the obscure titles that could be found. The fact that there was a pizzeria located in the video store made it a place of worship for me. I would stand in the aisles of that store for hours, reading the backs of the video boxes, which were almost like the size of cereal boxes back then, as if they contained the secrets of the universe.
We chose Tobe Hooper's THE FUNHOUSE and ordered a large mushroom pizza. Even though we were a couple of virgins with zero experience between us, romance was in the air. There was nobody home at my house and there were six Bartles and Jaymes Wine Coolers in our refrigerator. That night I would be Janet, Girl Gone Bad. You can't mix hormones, wine coolers and Tobe Hooper and expect nothing to happen. It just isn't possible.
Back at my house we opened two wine coolers, started eating our pizza and put in the movie. I think Ken is the only person in the world who has ever been put in the mood to make out while watching THE FUNHOUSE. I take my movie viewing very seriously so I didn't notice he was slowly inching closer to me on the couch. Right off the bat, a gratuitous shower scene. Why in these movies does the girl always turn on the shower and then spend an hour getting ready to get in the shower?
THE FUNHOUSE was turning out to be a pretty fun movie to watch. Two couples go to the carnival and what a carnival! Creepy Barkers announcing a dancing girl show for 3 bucks, fortune tellers and cows with two heads. Pretty soon Ken's arm was around me. I began to think he really didn't want to see this movie as much as he let on in the video store. I decided I needed another wine cooler. Great idea, nothing calms the nerves better than a stomach full of pizza and wine coolers.
Amy and Liz, the two lead girls in the movie, have a quick exchange in the carnival restroom. Liz announces that if Amy loosens up and has fun, she may not spend the rest of her life as a virgin. Ken and I exchange an awkward glance. Ultimately, the couples decide it would be fun to spend the night in the funhouse at the carnival. I must note here that Elizabeth Berridge, who played Amy, was awful (Although, in all fairness, she did get better through the years). I remember wanting her character's date to hold a mirror under her nose to make sure she was still breathing. The girl was barely lucid. Did her lunch during the shoot consist of nothing but Quaaludes and Jack Daniels?
But the movie was delivering. It had the elements I look for:
1. Gratuitous shower scene...Check
2. Crazy old person wandering around and warning everyone of impending doom...Check
3. Hair twirling, virginal girl in the lead role...Check
All the movie was missing was a deformed carny getting manual release from a fortune teller whom he kills shortly thereafter. Soon I was able to put a big fat check mark by that one too. Somewhere between Elizabeth Berridge's boobs and the deformed freak's dad finding the dead fortune teller's body, Ken decided it was time to make his move. He was, as they say in the poker world, about to go ALL IN. He grabbed my face and gave me a big, slobbery kiss. Mind you at this time I was about 5 wine coolers in and a complete lightweight so I did what any sensible, levelheaded virgin would do. I pushed Ken away and threw up all over the couch.
The only thing worse than throwing up five wine coolers and four pieces of pizza is watching someone throw up five wine coolers and four pieces of pizza. Poor Ken, he made a valiant effort to help me before the smell hit him and he ran for the bathroom with his hand firmly planted over his mouth. Ugh, instead of Janet, Girl Gone Bad it had turned into Janet, Girl Gone And Thrown Up All Over The Place. Of course, my mom came home at that moment to see me sitting in front of a pile of my own vomit, empty wine cooler bottles and slurring my words while I asked, "Hey mom, what's up?"
Ken was asked to leave and I was ordered to not hang around him anymore. I felt like staging some kind of drunken protest until I was told that I would be grounded for 3 months if I didn't obey. Young love is fickle, what can I say? I told myself it wouldn't have worked out anyway. I would have ended up living in the desert with Ken in a roadside motel, working as one of those sassy waitresses at a truck stop cafe. You know, the gal with dangly earrings, always holding a pot of coffee in her hand while trading one liners with road weary truck drivers. I would have come home to the hotel room every night, which would have been right next door to the restaurant, and yell at Ken about how his edgy dark poetry wasn't helping us pay the bills. Yep, life would have sucked.
Years later I was in a Blockbuster with a friend. I was looking at magazines and felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Ken. We exchanged pleasantries, telling each other how great we looked and how I broke his heart. He told me he had become a lawyer (Wow, I was really off about the whole truck stop thing). It was weird seeing him dressed in bright, cheery clothes. The homemade ear piercing was gone and OZZY was no longer written across his fingers. He was successful and happy and that made me feel really good. I was going to bring up the drunken incident but didn't, he didn't either. Maybe he had blocked it all out? Perhaps the incident wasn't as memorable to him as it was to me. We said our good-byes, hugged and made the promise to keep in touch.
As he turned to leave he said, "You should go see if they have THE FUNHOUSE". With that he smiled and walked away.
Well, they did and I rented it.
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