Dear Luke: My Girlfriend Can't Stop Watching Chicken Run
The following is a reader letter I recently received:
"Dere Loop,
My name is Herb. First off, thank ewe four your website, The Daily Luke. I like reading it even thow it looks like one of the original websites from when the Internet first started back in the 1940s. Actually, now that eye think about it, that is pretty impressive. It must have been hard to make a website back then considering like the war and typewriters and stuff.
I'm having a bit of relationship troubles. I have been dating my girlfriend, Melony, for about six mornths now. She is very nice, smart, pretty, kind, and totally real. For as good as things are going, we've been having some fiscal intimacy issues.
You sea, we just aren't fiscal... not fiscal at all. I would like to be fiscal with Melony, but I just can't seem to get here interest, fiscally. We've never kissed, hugged, or even held hands.
I think part of the issue is that sometimes it seems like Melony doesn't even know I'm here. In fact, Melony might nefer know I'm here. This is because all she ever wants to do is watch the movie "Chicken Run."
Everyday, Melony comes home from work, walks in our house (we bought a lovely little two bedroom home about five months ago), kicks off her moon boots by the door, walks right into the living room, and pops in the "Chicken Run" DVD. She then goes about watching the movie "Chicken Run" from start to finish. When the movie ends, she yells "CHICKEN RUN!" She then runs into the kitchen, makes some scrambled eggs, puts a bag of popcorn in the microwave, and squeezes some fresh lemonade, all while ritually chanting "CHICKEN RUN, CHICKEN RUN, CHICKEN RUN" while clapping her hands directly over head and throwing eggshells all over the kitchen. When the popcorn is done, which is also when the eggs are hardly cooked at all, she takes it out of the microwave and simply dumps the runny, semi-raw eggs on the entire bag. One dozen eggs per one bag of popcorn. The lemons come from a lemon tree in our backyard, in case that helps.
After making her snack, she bolts back into the living room, restarts "Chicken Run," then watches it again. She does this three or four times, depending on when she gets back from work, until it's time for bed. Then, she yells one final "CHICKEN RUN," goes upstairs, and collapses onto the bed, competely exhausted.
I'm not talking just tired, I mean dead tired. Literally. She lies there all crumpled, right on top of the comforter. She has no pulse, no breath, and her eyes are wide open. The first time this happened I panicked, screaming and crying. My audible terror awoke my sleeping beauty, seemingly from the dead, then she went back to bed, or dead, more like it. Her body shuts down when she's not watching "Chicken Run" and only starts back up the next morning when she gets won more view of the film in.
We've gone through dozens and dozens of copies of "Chicken Run," about $1000 worth of eggs and popcorn, and yet we've still never had any fiscal contract with each other. The lemon tree always produces, though, if that helps. I could watch her "Chicken Run" everyday routine for the rest of my life because I love her so, so much, but I would also like a little touch, too.
What do I do? How do I tayke our relationaship two the next level?
Sincerely,
Herb"
* * *
Herb,
Good to hear from you. I appreciate your reaching out.
Let me start by pointing out that my name is Luke. I could maybe see how you could misconstrue it and think it's "Loop," but only if you were hearing it. Being as you're a reader, I don't really know what to say about that. This site is called The Daily Luke, which you yourself brought up in your also-written letter. Herb, you've read my name. Sometimes in grade school kids would think my name was "Look," "Lou," or even "Blue" (Midwestern accents can produce strange audio effects even at a very young age). Those instances were understandable. Yours is not, honestly. Still, I appreciate your coming to the site and being a fan. So I'll let it go and try my best to keep you in the loop.
My initial reaction was that you are already quite fiscally intimate with Melony. After all, you two bought a house together after dating for only a month. A house is arguably the biggest purchase one can make, so you two are as close as can be in that regard.
Realizing that you actually mean you wish to become physically intimate with your girlfriend, this makes the situation a little more complicated. I've never seen "Chicken Run," but I know almost everyone loved it. It has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling it "not only funny and wicked, clever and visually inventive, but . . . kind and sweet." These are strong words of praise.
Herb, if I know one thing about movies, it's that they often change how people look at the entire world. When people hate a movie, they kill it. When they love a movie, they immortalize it. By being so well-loved, it seems that "Chicken Run" did become immortal. By so well-loving "Chicken Run," Melony too seems to have become immortal, in a very unique, strange, kind-of-also-dead way.
Melony clearly really cares about "Chicken Run." She loves it. It's a part of her. It's her entire being. It's her life-source.
Herb, do you really care about Melony as much as you say you do? If so, then you must embrace how much this movie means to her, embrace how much she needs it. You can't change people. You can only change yourself. If you want to make this relationship work, Herb, to make it last, to take it to the next level, you will have to learn to love not Melony's watching "Chicken Run," but "Chicken Run" itself. Only then will you be able to be fully compatible with Melony. Only then will you two be able to really understand each other. Only then will your soul be able to leave your body in sacrifice to the splendor that is "Chicken Run" and unite with Melony's soul.
That's what love is: when two souls come together as one.
Best,
Luke