The Danger of Watching 24 Before Bed
E and I have become obsessed with 24. This is not that surprising, considering CityCat got me hooked in the middle of season 4 against my will (and I resisted for several months - you can ask fidelsensei) and E only lasted 15 minutes into the pilot before realizing that this is a Netflix rental that he and I both would be watching obsessively.
Such as the first 4 episodes of season 2 last night until 3am.
Until you go to bed and you and Kim Bauer are at the mall. In the middle of a cross between Embassy Row and the Olympic Village - all the different embassies have offices within a contained area.
Since this was a 24 nightmare, it is needless for me to explain that a disaster ensued. And instead of being shoppers, Kim Bauer and I turned into vaguely paramilitary...things. The bulk of the dream involves us running around this Olympic Village type area, trying to convince the people that took over that we were alternately on their side or the other side, depending on the minute. We pushed a lot of stretchers and eventually were sharing passwords with the wife of the chinese ambassador as we tried to get people in and out of a booby-trapped embassy.
Then (as I feel the point comes in each season) Kim Bauer turned into Stupid Kim. You know what I'm talking about? The part in the season where you wonder if the writers are making her annoying on purpose? To be fair, I only have seen 2.7 seasons of 24, but she has made the transition in each one that I've seen. In fact, E and I were over her and taking bets on when she would be first kidnapped 10 minutes into Episode 1 of season 2. In my dream, she started being unpredictable and doing stupid things, and the downside? She/we never got rescued.
In fact, what got me out of the bad situation? The realization I had to fly to Alaska. For the Cruise to Nowhere.
And luckily, she was not coming with us.
So, I booked it over to the Philadelphia airport (yeah, I don't know why either) where my entire family was waiting for me and E to get on the flight. I could barely remember what flight we were on, or what airline, so I was counting on E (or perhaps my mother/father/sibling 1/sibling 2/sibling 3/grandmother/grandfather - since they were ALL THERE) to remember those details. I should have remembered, I was dreaming, and needed another disaster to come and interfere with my sleep.
My father asked me to purchase him a book (since he was all finished with his, since we had been at the airport since before time because E and my grandfather both are soulmates on getting to the airport 12 hours ahead of time) I am not sure why I felt such a compulsion to do this, nor why it was immediately apparent to me that he needed to read the DaVinci Code (since it is a book that I would enjoy, but I am not sure he would) (and it did make sense that my father is the last person on the face of the planet to read the book, since he reads more slowly than anyone that I know, especially with as little time in his life he has devoted to reading). But I dutifully ran into the Walk-Through Borders conveniently located next to my gate, and looked frantically for the mass market paperbook version of the book. Unable to find that, I went to where there were copies of the trade paperback-only to discover that those had been moved or purchased in the last 25 seconds. Horror of horrors - I had to ask for help.
I did find the book and rush over to the gate - of course, to discover that we missed our flight. In fact, it was pulling away from the jetway, and there was I standing stupidly by the desk (and luckily, there was E or else our relationship would have been in serious jeopardy).
Do you know how hard it is to book yourself on a rescheduled flight to Anchorage? How about when the agent really wants to send you to Vancouver? And when your entire family is standing around yelling about it being your fault.
Luckily, it was not the entire family, since we discovered sibling 2 (my favorite) was missing.
In a strange sign of sisterly-solidarity, Sibling 1 and I grabbed hands and ran to the nearest internet cafe. Where I kicked sibling 2 off his computer and began looking up prices and times for flights from Vancouver to Anchorage.
When the computer refused to let me, and instead began projecting a sepia-toned presentation (presumably on Ben Franklin, since we were in Philly) I remembered something.
I was dreaming.
So I woke up, convinced we would miss our flight to Anchorage on the Cruise to Nowhere. I immediately got up and began looking up alternate flight arrangements.
Action Steps (or, to the non-KTDP savvy-things I have learned)
-I will NEVER bring my family to the airport for an almost-international flight.
-I will pay attention to my own flight information.
-I will never go shopping with either Kim Bauer or Elisha Cuthbert since with me around, Keifer does not come to rescue us.
Labels: 24, Canadian Family, TV
