That Guy

Posted by E

Thursday, July 31, 2008

We all have fears that we deal with on a daily basis. I'm mindful because I fear stepping on ants. (I don't wish to indiscriminantly kill.) I struggle every day with those voices commanding me to rape the elderly. (Most days I prevail.) But my one greatest overall fear is the fear of being "That guy".

We've all dealt with that guy at some point in our lives. Whether it be at a restaurant, at the store or at the theater, we've all run across that guy who takes unimportant things WAY too seriously.

Point in case, a week ago, like much of America, I made my way to the theater to catch a screening of The Dark Knight. I had gone with a few friends to an IMAX screening. We got our tickets and made our way to the line for the theater.

After standing there for a few, I turned to one of my friends and said, rather jokingly I thought, "Now, I didn't see Spider-Man 2. Is this movie going to make any sense?"

You could almost hear the frustration coming from the geek that I offended, his hatred so palpable.

"This isn't Spider-Man. It's BATMAN!!!"

"Oh, yeah, sorry, my bad," I said, eyes rolling about in their sockets.

What the fuck, man? First off, did he REALLY think that I was unaware that the ticket I just bought was for Batman? I had to ASK for the ticket at the booth or PUSH THE BUTTON for it at the machine. You'd have to be pretty well retarded to make it all the way to the theater without realizing what film you were there to see.

Is it worth mentioning that no less than THREE people I was with were wearing Batman shirts? That nearly 60% of the LINE was wearing Batman shirts? That every fucking poster at the theater and the giant cardboard display were BATMAN?

"That guy" is always around, always getting indignant over the most banal and uninteresting things.

"NO! KITT damaged HIS Alpha Circuit towing a hatchback in episode 3, "Deadly Maneuvers". You're thinking of the episode where KARR ends up submerged in water, damaging his Alpha Circuit, which in turn required manual intervention for the turbo boost to fire."

"The ORIGINAL Grimlock was from the Diaclone series by Takara Toys that launched in Japan in 1980. So, the Hasbro version released in 1985 is technically a SECOND release."

"It was CLEARLY established in Rainbow Brite's backstory that she was originally an orphan named Wisp, who was taken to the Colorless World. She gets the Sphere of Light and befriends Twink and Starlite, THEN she got the Color Belt and met the Color Kids. Once she beat the Dark One, she was renamed to Rainbow Brite."

Surely any normal person would feel an uncontrollable rage to pummel the face of whatever greasy monstrosity belched out such pointless drivel.

I have my quirks and I certainly have several things that I know WAY too much about. But get this, you can talk incorrectly around me. I might correct you, but I would not get in a huff and throw a tantrum over it.

Is there really anything cartoon, toy or movie-based in this world that's worth defending with so much vigor? Do people really attach that much of their own identity into these things?

For the sake of it, let's ruffle some feathers:

OPTIMUS PRIME IS THE LEADER OF THE HOMOBOTS

ANAKIN SKYWALKER WAS A WHINY LITTLE EMO BITCH THAT DESERVED WHAT HE GOT

ANIME IS NOT COOL

You know, I have been in exactly one fist fight in my entire life. All these years, one fight. You know what that fight was about?

The Smurfs.

That's right, some kid challenged me to a fist fight in sixth grade because I dared to accuse Papa Smurf of being nothing more than a Marxist symbol and that Smurf village was a communist society. That was seriously enough to make somebody wish to cause bodily harm.

Oy gevalt.