For those of you who don't know yet (everybody), this Lent, I am once again attempting to recreate the classic Josh Hartnett movie 40 Days and 40 Nights.
A movie in which a character named Matt (like me), who is a stud of a Casanova of a man (not like me) and has a mole on his neck (like me) attempts to give up all kinds of sexual contact for Lent, meets some punky-haired, pixie-faced girl at a laundromat after sharing his secret stash of detergent with her, goes on a date with that girl in which they ride on a bus and I'm pretty sure they make fun of the homeless and retarded people on it, gives this chick he now "really" likes an orgasm by like blowing a feather around on her and blowing on her navel since he can't touch her (I can personally confirm that giving girls a no-touch orgasm is possible), has a betting ring start up around him to predict on what day he'll finally blow it (so to speak), is eventually pretty much raped by his ex-girlfriend just before Lent ends (always has been a personal fantasy of mine), and almost loses the girl he met at the laundromat, but ends up with her in the end and presumably they bang on Easter Sunday or something in the confessional. I'm a little rusty on some of the details. But so far, very little of that has actually happened to me. Now that all of you know though, I'm kind of hoping for at least the semi-consensual rape one, if any.
This is not the first time I've tried to recreate a Josh Hartnett classic. I was trying to find a cheap ticket to Barrow, Alaska to recreate 30 Days of Night, a terrifying vampire movie, which I saw in theaters with two girls, and I was easily the most scared of three, but that just never panned out since I have no idea what actually happened in that movie. I can definitely tell you what that movie sounded like and what the people sitting around me looked like, but I can barely remember anything visual from the movie, because I was using my classic "look like you're not scared even though you really are scared as shit during a scary movie move."
What you do is, you wear a hat to the movie. For instance, I wore my Toronto Maple Leafs hat. You tip it pretty low and during the movie when the scary parts come, you tilt your own head down a bit. Then looking up towards the screen, the top half of the movie is pretty much obscured by the bill of your hat and you can keep tabs on the bottom third, quarter, eighth, okay, inch or so of the screen if it's really scary to know when it's safe to look up again. You're welcome.
But back to 40 Days and 40 Nights. So this Lent, for the past 21 days so far, I have abstained from having sexual contact with any other person AND from having sexual contact with myself. I really miss my morning mirror kisses. Let me make a quick note here, I am pretty sure I've had one or two O-Town Liquid Dreams, if you know what I mean, since I woke up to some kind of wetness in my bed, and my psychiatrist told me he figured I was cured for good of my bedwetting problems a few years back. Hey, it's not the worst thing that could happen to you while you're in bed. You could always fall down a sinkhole and die.
Now, had this been the same amount of time into Lent as any of the other years I have tried, there would be no reason to write this, because I am absolutely positive I have never made it this far. The fact of the matter is, it is a biological fact that any time a man feels any emotion whatsoever, he instinctively has to reach down into his pants to remind himself that he has a penis and should not be having any feelings whatsoever. That's science. And I'm a fucking manly man. I mean, I went into In-N-Out today, and I ordered a chocolate milkshake...Animal Style. So you know my hand-to-pant ratio is much higher than the average man. And once it's down there, it's just so hard to say no. For girls, it would be like not feeding your dog or cat human food. You know you shouldn't, but it's just impossible not to. I don't judge you for that, so get off my case about body's natural hand-warmer.
Of course, after 21 days, I thought, well I made it halfway. Only 19 more to go. I can do this. Then I checked my Handy Dandy Notebook replica from Blue's Clues (Yes, I know the Handy Dandy Notebook is not a planner or a calendar and that it's a blank spiral pad. Just appreciate the fuckin' reference and move on). Easter is on the 31st. Today is the 6th. That's 25 more days. From Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday isn't 40 days, it's 46 days. Bum, bum, BUUUUUMMMMM!!
How can this be? Is this another Catholic Church conspiracy/cover up? Is this what Dan Brown's new novel is gonna be about? Somebody get Robert Langdon on the phone right now to investigate this.
Look, I expect the Church to look the other way and cover up some of the minor stuff like molestations, drug rings, and all that, but lying about the number of days Lent is...that's major. For all these years, I've been giving up Mountain Dew, candy, IcyHot, writing in cursive, and all that other stuff for more than 40 days.
Now, for those of you that don't know why people that observe Lent give up something for 40 days, it's because Jesus fasted for 40 days in the desert and overcame three separate temptations by the devil. But you know what Jesus did on the 41st day? He took a 24 oz. Ribeye, used a miracle to turn it into 50 steaks and put away at least three dozen of them and a handful of loaded baked potatoes. That's in one of the Gospel of Matthew's Lost Verses. It's not in the regular Bible.
So 40 days is good enough for Jesus, but I gotta do 46? That hardly seems fair. I think Jesus Christ has a little bit more of an advantage than I do, considering he's both human and divine. And I'm willing to let it slide for all the other stuff, but no sexual stuff for over 40 days? Nuh uh, I'm drawing the line.
Jesus may have been the son of God, but while he was down here on Earth, he was also a man. And dollars to donuts, Jesus fudging Christ glazed the desert a time or two during those 40 days with his creme filling. Look, nature calls. And for a man that presumably never married and never had sex, a 40 day crank down session out in the desert where no one would see him or find out about it sounds like a pretty nickel slick idea.
But apparently, after doing just a tiny bit of research, the discrepancy in days is accounted for by most church denominations by not counting the Sundays in Lent as part of the 40 days. And then Lent ends on Holy Thursday instead of Easter Sunday or something and that all accounts for the 6 extra days in some form of fashion.
Oh, I'm sorry, so when Jesus was starving his ass off in the desert, when a Sunday came around, was he just like, oh this day doesn't count? I can eat today, but we'll still keep count like it's been consecutive days. I don't think so. That's not in any of the Gospels or the Gospels' Lost Verses, so don't even try.
No, I'm not buying this explanation for why Lent is 46 days long of giving something up when Jesus only did 40. And you know what, I'm gonna go for all 46.
And if I pull this off, then I just one-upped Jesus Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment