My parents were pretty strict about what I could watch as a kid. Movie ratings weren’t just a general guideline in our household, they were set in stone. Once after school, I found one of my favorite things pinned on the freezer door with a bright orange magnet. A small white piece of paper stating in a hurried scrawl that my parents “went for walk, back at 5:20″. The house was quite, full of opportunities, and all mine. I quickly listed all the things I could do. I could search my parents room for interesting items, go play basketball outside before doing my homework, or… my list abruptly came to an end as I saw what sat on the mantel by the fireplace.
It was a movie, and the title named it “Tommy Boy” starring David Spade and the now-deceased Chris Farley. With a jolt of excitement I stared at the forbidden label: PG-13. I was ten years old at the time, and thought my parents were going out of their way to act like Nazis and make me look like crap in front of my friends. After all, my best friend had seen R rated movies when he was six years old! Six! Damn, that guy was cool.
I figured my parents wouldn’t be back soon, and I needed this to prove I had the maturity needed to watch this coveted comedy. I took the tape out of the box and inserted it into the VCR. I giggled unreasonably at the foul language and over-the-top antics of Chris Farley, but to be honest I was wondering what the fuss was all about. The movie wasn’t THAT good. Then came the pool scene. For those of you that don’t vividly remember, it involved David Spade spending some quality time at a window while a stunning woman swam in the pool below. Oh, I forgot, she took her bikini off in the process. I felt like I was peeking into some sort of personal moment that I didn’t fully understand, but the girl was naked! Suddenly a wide array of new possibilities bloomed in my head. This was before I was allowed in the Internet, and was the first PG-13 I had seen in my young life. It went from an underwhelming experience to one I still remember to this day.
I spent the next ten minutes or so in a daze, that was broken sharply by the slam of a car door. I pride myself in performance under pressure, and this was no exception. I leaped off the couch and dove at the VCR, my index finger slamming the stop button about 3 times before pressing eject. Nothing. I pressed eject again, and whirring slowed to a stop, the VCR clicked and sputtered a few times, and spat out the tape. I slammed it back into the case and placed it back on the mantel ever-so-carefully. The title facing away from me, and one corner poking out over the edge exactly like I had found it. I then snatched the remote, and while flopping back onto the couch changed it off blue glow of channel 3 to PBS. I think Wishbone was on. I loved Wishbone, It was one of my favorite shows at the time (we didn’t get cable, don’t make fun of me!), but I couldn’t stop thinking about that girl in the pool.
To make a long story a little bit shorter, I had made one crucial mistake during this time. I didn’t rewind the movie, and my parents hadn’t watched it yet. Not only did they find out I had been watching the movie, they knew EXACTLY what part I had stopped watching on, which unfortunately was right after the pool scene. My parents were outraged. My mom told me to go to my room for a full hour, and my dad later told me it was against the law to watch that movie since I wasn’t 13, and that I should “be thankful (he) didn’t call the police”. I am ashamed to admit it, but I believed him at the time. I was terrified and embarrassed, but I had seen over the wall into the land of forbidden movies, and there was nothing there that could scare me. Nothing at all. Then I saw Jurassic Park.
