Now & Then & Never Again

“Yeah, Dad,” said Miss7 from the couch beside me. “What’s a hard on?”

We were sitting watching a wonderful movie called Now & Then. It’s a great coming of age movie about friendship, with a little mystery thrown in. I’ve always loved it and my oldest daughter has always loved it – that’s why we own a copy.

But I confess I haven’t watched it in a long time.

Still, knowing what a great movie it is, I put it into the dvd player a few weeks ago and pressed play. There’d been a kerfuffle about what to watch amongst the kids with no consensus being reached, so I’d chosen.

“You’ll love this,” I told them.

They weren’t convinced.

“What’s it about?” asked Miss11.

“It’s about four girls having an adventure when they were younger and then, when they’re older, getting together and remembering what happened,” I told her.

“It sounds horrible,” said Master9.

“Trust me,” I assured them.

I should have known better than to trust me.

“The last time you chose a movie there were giant rats,” Miss7 chimed in. Of all the things to remember from The Princess Bride, she picks the huge, fake looking rodents.

But I knew I’d picked well this time when they watched it again straight after it finished. And then again the next day. In fact, they’ve watched it a half dozen times in three weeks.

And I finally got to sit down with them tonight and watch a bit too.

It was just as good as I remembered, with the red rover scenes, the bike riding adventure and the graveyard bits. Wonderful. Plus there’s the dead sexy Janeane Garofalo bonus scenes as well. And for the ladies, Brendan Fraser.

And you remember that scene where the girls are spying on the boys skinny dipping?

I sure didn’t.

Which was why my jaw dropped hard and I stared dumbstruck at the screen when the line ‘I saw his penis’ was said, followed so quickly by ‘and the balls’ that I hadn’t a chance to close my mouth so I could drop it again. Instead, my whole head bobbed forward, as if it was going to topple off my neck.

I picked up the cover to check the rating – PG.  So we’re supposed to help the kids understand the movie, but who’s supposed to be helping us?

To make things worse, no one in the room except me seemed to be bothered by the scene.

But maybe that was because they knew the scene, which they’d watched at least six times recently, wasn’t done yet.

“It’s only big when a guy has a hard on,” said the Roberta character.

“What’s a hard on?” asked the naive Chrissy character…

… which Miss7 repeated to me half a second later.

Note to self –  I am never to choose a movie for the kids to watch again. Ever.

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“Raising a family on little more than laughs”