La Vita E Bella

I grew up "in the mission field" with a false belief that Utah was a dating haven. I thought that as soon as I got to Utah, I'd be participating in hundreds and hundreds of dates with beautiful, spiritual, and eligible men.

When I was eighteen, I moved from Canada to St. George and was ready for my love life to begin. I met a guy named Bob and immediately developed a crush on him. He was a geek, and I liked geeks. He was skinny and like Billy Joel. He also owned or managed the tire store that fixed my brakes while I was there.

Well, one day he came into my respectable place of work to buy some ice cream. It was a Friday, and I decided to ask him to go with me to see Life Is Beautiful, which was at the dollar theatre. If only I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have asked him. He said he'd already seen it. I should have clued in at this point that if the guy were interested in me, he'd have said yes, and gone to see it with me anyway. I was stupid though, and I persisted: "Well, did you want to see it again??" I guess he realized at this point that there was no way around it other than to lie (I have plans tonight) or tell the truth (I am not even remotely interested in you) or simply say yes. So he said that he'd pick me up at about 6:30.

I went home and I called my mom and told her that I had a date! So exciting. Life was truly beautiful.

At 6:30, I was waiting for Bob. At 6:45, I was still waiting for Bob. At 6:55, I was thinking about that movie that was going to start in five minutes. At 6:56, Bob came and apologized for being late. He assured me that since he'd seen the movie, he'd be able to explain whatever we missed.

We got to the dollar theatre, and I felt awkward when he paid for me since I had invited him, but I didn't really know what else to do. When he offered to buy candy/snacks for the movie, I declined, first because I felt awkward making him pay for my candy and second because I really wanted to get into the theatre to see the movie. He decided to buy candy for himself, though, so after I'd already declined candy, I still had to wait with him in line instead of watching the movie that I wanted to see so badly.

Once we got into the theatre, we took our seats and started watching. Guido (Benigni) kept stealing a man's hat. Bob leaned over to me and said, "He keeps stealing that man's hat." This annoyed me, because I thought that was pretty obvious. Bob continued to make very obvious statements about the movie.

Still near the begining, Guido and his roommate are sharing a bed. Bob leaned over to me and said, "They're not gay. They're just roommates." This was too much.

I leaned over to Bob and said, "I know. But thanks for clarifying that for me." What I wanted to say was, "Oh! Thank you! Thank you for explaining that to me, because if you hadn't told me, I would have thought this movie was about homosexual Jews overcoming their homosexuality in Italy during the Holocaust!"

Nevertheless, it seemed that the sarcasm from my thanks for clarifying that for me held enough weight. Bob was silent for the rest of the movie.

When the movie was over, at about 9:00, Bob and I got back into his car. At that point, I wondered where he'd take me. Would he take me out for ice cream? Would he ask me, "What do you want to do now?" As we talked about the movie, I noticed that Bob was taking the familiar route home. So it was that I was dropped off at about 9:00 on a Friday night.

"And good thing, too!" I shouted as I cried myself to sleep. I could simply never love a man who talks during movies.