In a supermarket, Kurtis the stock boy, was busily working when a new voice came over the loud speaker asking for a carry out at register 4. Kurtis was almost finished, and wanted to get some fresh air, and decided to answer the call. As he approached the check-out stand a distant smile caught his eye, the new check-out girl was beautiful. She was an older woman (maybe 26, and he was only 22) and he fell in love.

Later that day, after his shift was over, he waited by the punch clock to find out her name. She came into the break room, smiled softly at him, took her card and punched out, then left. He looked at her card, BRENDA. He walked out only to see her start walking up the road.

Next day, he waited outside as she left the supermarket, and offered her a ride home. He looked harmless enough, and she accepted. When he dropped her off, he asked if maybe he could see her again, outside of work. She simply said it wasn’t possible.

He pressed and she explained she had two children and she couldn’t afford a baby-sitter, so he offered to pay for the baby-sitter. Reluctantly she accepted his offer for a date for the following Saturday.

That Saturday night he arrived at her door only to have her tell him that she was unable to go with him. The baby-sitter had called and canceled. To which Kurtis simply said, “Well, let’s take the kids with us.”

She tried to explain that taking the children was not an option, but again not taking no for an answer, he pressed. Finally Brenda, brought him inside to meet her children. She had an older daughter who was just as cute as a bug, Kurtis thought, then Brenda brought out her son, in a wheelchair. He was born a paraplegic with Down Syndrome.

Kurtis asked Brenda, “I still don’t understand why the kids can’t come with us?” Brenda was amazed. Most men would run away from a woman with two kids, especially if one had disabilities - just like her first
husband and father of her children had done. Kurtis was not ordinary - - - he had a different mindset.

That evening Kurtis and Brenda loaded up the kids, went to dinner and the movies. When her son needed anything Kurtis would take care of him. When he needed to use the restroom, he picked him up out of his
wheelchair, took him and brought him back. The kids loved Kurtis. At the end of the evening, Brenda knew this was the man she was going to marry and spend the rest of her life with.

A year later, they were married and Kurtis adopted both of her children.

Since then they have added two more kids.

So what happened to Kurtis the stock boy at a grocery store in Cedar Falls/Waterloo, IA and Brenda the check-out girl? Well, Mr. & Mrs. Kurt Warner now live in Arizona , where he is currently employed as the
quarterback of the National Football League Arizona Cardinals and has his Cardinals in the hunt for a possible winning of the Super Bowl.

Nice story right? Now, if you’re of my mother’s blood (I won’t put a last name up here to protect the “innocent”), you already know what I’m about to say, but I’ll say it anyhow:

This story is a heap of bullshit…

Sure, Kurt Warner might have been a stock boy, and his wife a cashier… Hell, they might have even been working at the same store at the same time. I might go as far as to say I believe it is where they met, and the circumstances around which their marriage is founded are accurate and true. So why do I call bullshit?

Because NO WAY… NO HOW is it possible for him to win the Super Bowl….

Oh… one last thing… A “stock boy” at 22? Really Kurt?

Last night I was seeking some mindless, one-sided entertainment that only a moview on the boob tube (are we still calling it that?) can provide. Having scrolled through the endless list of drivel available to me on tv, I decided to hit the Comcast ON DEMAND feature for a movie. I wasn’t in the mood for anything in particular, but I knew I wanted to see something I hadn’t seen before.

Although it came out in 2001, I had never seen Donnie Darko.  I never even heard anything about it, but the title sort of tipped me off that I probably wouldn’t like it. The film’s logo (as seen above) was further indication I should pass on it. Then, while reading Entertainment Weelyls list of the top 50 best high school movies of all time (circa 2006), I noticed that Donnie Darko placed #14 - a very respectable position - on such a distinguished list. I guess I had to give it a rip.

I tuned in late last night without knowing ANYTHING about this movie. It’s not unusual for me to watch a movie without knowing anything about it… My best bud Kaz will impose a movie I’d never heard of (typically to my liking), but this was an odd decision for me. I like what I like and I’m comfortable with that.

So here I am watching a movie about a paranoid schizophrenic and wondering how on earth this is considered a “high school” movie enoug to make a list about them. Although I wasn’t enjoying it much, I decided to finish the flick… I will always finish watching a movie once I start it.

I can’t remember if any film I’d ever watched before struck me the way this one did. I felt uneasy about it from start to finish. Something about the movie really bothered me, almost phyiscally. Perhaps it was that I didn’t understand it at all. This is a rare occurance for me. I’m a smart guy, and I know my way around the movies, so typically before half time, I know what the end of the moview is going to be like. There are two exceptions to this:

1. The Matrix - Which I admit to not grasping the first time I saw it. It had to do with one particular scene in the movie.
2.  Arlington Road

So here I am lost and confused and feeling uneasy about it. I figured it was just a bad movie which wasn’t revealing itself as it ought to but would eventually. So I waited… and waited… and waited until the rolling credits started.

Finally… I was glad it was over. It wasn’t my kind of movie; I should learn to trust my instincts more!. As my brain was about to change gears, I did my final internal recap of the movie for my own comprehension. I replayed the major plot items in my head and retold the story in about 3 seconds. Then all of a sudden, my brain went: “Wait…. What?”

I realized that I had just spent 113 minutes watching a movie and I had no idea what it was about. For the first time in my life I had to Google the movie explanation. With the Matrix I just watched the movie again. The second time I got it, but with Donnie Darko, there’s no chance I’ll ever watch it again so Google it is.

I read the director’s (who also wrote the movie) explanation of the events that took place and I can safely say that I could have watched the moview 100 times and never figured it out. First of all, the director uses terminology in his explanation which are not revealed anywhere in the movie. Terms like “living receiver”, “tangent universe”, “manipulated dead”, “manipulated living”, “artifact”, “primary universe”, and even ”fourth dimensional construct” (which as irony would have it is actually water). These terms only appear in a book that is referenced in the movie, which the director also wrote called “The Philosophy of Time Travel”. This book is also fiction. This guy proceeds as if his book was taught to us in 3rd grade science class.

I guess it cost $4.25 million to make the film and grossed $4.1 million which means it lost $150K in the theaters. A few years later it became a cult classic in the physchological thriller genre and made the franchise an outright success, although I can’t see how. It sort of sucked, even if it would have been comprehensible. I like Jake Gyllenhaal in everything else I’ve seen him in (Bubble Boy, Jarhead), and his sister Maggie is cute too, but the plot sucked, the other actors (except Donnie’s mom) sucked, and the tension which lasted until the last 30 seconds was unwarranted.

It’s been around for almost 8 years now, but if you haven’t seen it, I’d avoid it.