Why I Shouldn't Watch Action Movies

Joey and I were gone all weekend at one of those FamilyLife Weekend To Remember marriage enrichment conferences. We had a really great time (thanks Mom and Dad!) but were entirely zapped of all ability to think by the time we got home on Sunday night.

We determined the best course of action, after our extremely communicative weekend, was to sit and watch a movie. (Maybe not what FamilyLife would get too excited about, but since we don't normally veg in front of the TV, we decided to do it anyway.)

Back at the hotel, we had caught about 30 minutes of The Peacemaker, an old George Clooney and Nicole Kidman action movie. It seemed interesting, so on the way back we stopped at a Blockbuster and picked up a copy.

Henry was insanely excited to see us when we got home. He ran around the house for about 5 minutes and licked everything in sight. He's got issues.

About 9:00 we settled in to watch the movie. Joey had the lappy on a TV tray at the end of the bed, so all three of us were watching the movie in style. (Henry kept laying in front of the screen, so he eventually got demoted to the floor.)

There's this one scene about an hour into the film where the good guys get roadblocked by the bad guys. The driver of the car (George Clooney's friend) gets out to go talk with them, and they shoot him.

I am very sensitive. Didn't used to be, but definitely am now. I totally screamed, dove for cover, and put my hands up to my face all at the same time.

In the process, I hauled off and punched myself in the nose.

"OW!" I wailed.

"Whadjado?" Joey mumbled, half curious, half watching the movie.

"Nothing..." I said stoically as I rocked back and forth wondering if I'd broken my nose.

I determined that I hadn't and went back to watching the car chase unfold in the movie.

Then I noticed something unusual. My face was all wet. I must have caused my nose to run when I punched myself. I wiped it with the back of my hand (not advisable in polite company) just to be sure.

It was dark in the room, but I could tell that my hand was covered in blood. Unable to express myself the way a normal human being would, I began The Laird Distress Call.

"Hemma" "aaaugh" "hah...hah...hah" and other such nonsense noises, repeated in rapid succession, comprise The Laird Distress Call. We generally do this when such tragedies occur as Pops' sunglasses falling down the waterfall in the Boundary Waters (props to Andrew on that one), a vehicle nearly backing into our car and we can see it and the driver can't, or a large object about to fall and break.

Rarely does anyone actually understand what we're trying to communicate. Such was the case last night.

"What's wrong, Jenna?" Joey asked, suddenly QUITE unnerved.

"Hemma....aaaaaaugh......jaaaaah," I intoned.

He squinted to look me over in the dark. Nothing appeared to be too out of the ordinary until I finally got out the word "nose" and jumped off the bed.

Joey followed me into the bathroom as though his tail were on fire. When we got to the bathroom, he saw what all the commotion had been about. The right side of my face was smeared with blood. I had definitely given myself a bloody nose.

"Paper towels," I articulated, and Joey took off running. He was back in a flash with 5 paper towels. (About 4 too many, but you can't blame the guy for being thorough.)

I washed my face, attempted to stop the bleeding, and cleaned up the dirty dishes. (Probably shouldn't have cleaned up the dishes at that particular moment, but I'm a little neurotic about that.)

Five minutes later, all was well. I was no longer bleeding profusely and we were settled back down and started the movie again.

I was very careful of my nose during all the rest of the jump scenes.