Amend Loudly, and In My Ear

I have just one rule for watching movies with me: Do not, under any circumstances, ruin my cry. If the end of a movie is emotional, and I’ve invested two hours of my life into building enough empathy with the story to be able to feel something at the end, I will freaking cut you if you make a stupid remark or joke that interferes with my ability to cry.

It’s a simple rule. Easy to remember, and easy to respect. All I ask is that you keep your jokes to yourself until I’m done sniffling.

Wes learned this rule when we watched Moulin Rouge together the first time. He made a joke, I couldn’t cry, and I gave him a very intensive introductory lecture to my one movie watching rule. That was ten years ago. He hasn’t screwed it up since.

At least, until last Sunday when he thought the end of Gladiator would be a great time to crack a joke about pooping on the dead bad guy right as the hero is being carried out by his friends.

My cry? RUINED. Three hours of the extended edition built up to a single moment, and Wes just couldn’t help himself.

I was cross. So cross, in fact, that I may have brought it up in loving, shrieky fashion a few times that night after the credits rolled.

So Wes did something curious: He invited me to hit him. On the face.

I considered it, then shrugged and said, “Sure, why not?” and went for what I thought would be a light slap. It turns out, I have no idea how to slap someone lightly and aim it where it’s supposed to go so instead of a light, playful slap, I ended up slapping him on the ear.

(Please note: Wes is not a battered husband. This was a silly slap, we were goofing around, and all is well. Don’t call husband protective services on me, thanks!)

Profuse apologies from me ensued, mostly variations on this theme: “I’m so sorry I hit you! I had no idea it was going to be so hard! Are you okay? I’m so sorry I hit you oh my gosh!”

Wes accepted my apology, we laughed about my terrible aim, and then I apologized again. After the umpteenth apology, Wes said the following to me: “Amend loudly, and in my ear.”

I thought it was a weird request, but whatever, I’m flexible. I walked up to him and whisper-yelled, “I’M SORRY” directly into his ear.

Now, it turns out that what he meant was that he wanted me to amend my apology to denote the force and location of the slap. What I thought he meant was that he wanted me to make amends loudly and in his ear.

You can imagine how confusing it got from there. He ran away from me, convinced I’d lost my mind. I chased him, wondering why he didn’t like my apology. (Please note, we were laughing this whole time. We are silly.)

We ended up in a stand-off in the master closet, where  we figured out where things had gone so gravely, comically wrong.

I will probably never slap Wes again (even if he asks me to) and he’ll probably never ask me to amend my apologies again.

And maybe, just maybe, he’ll remember the slap and the whisper-yelling directly into his ear and the chasing and the laughing, and remember to never again break my one movie watching rule. The stakes, my friends, are far too high.