We checked into our hotel yesterday at around 11:30AM to get some relief from the heat, mainly for our elderly dogs who weren’t looking good at all. Saturday we sat in our apartment with the curtains drawn, playing Monopoly and Phase 10 and Chess and taking cold showers every couple of hours and rubbing the dogs down with ice water whenever they started panting. Sunday we had power in our hotel room, so it was all about X-Box games and DVDs.
Back to life, back to reality. Or whatever passes for it since the days of Soul II Soul’s chart-topping single.
Sidebar: do you know that website where people post pictures of their Go-Packs, or whatever? The stuff they’d take with them in the event of a fire or something? Well, here’s our Hotel Go-Pack (one suitcase and one bookbag) for getting through a heat wave without electricity:
- X-Box (two controllers)
- Laptops
- Kindle
- Us Weekly (2 issues)
- Cell phones
- Phase 10 Cards
- Regular cards
- Notebook w/four-color pen
- Change of clothes (including workout clothes)
- Dogs (two) w/dog food, pills, water bowls, blankets, and beds
- Eight Hitchcock movies (The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz, Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt, Rope, and Rear Window)
- Six X-Box games (Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, Lego Indiana Jones, Arkham City, Deus Ex, You Don’t Know jack, and NBA 2k12)
- The Back to the Future trilogy
So yesterday we watched the Back to the Future trilogy for the hundredth time but probably the FIRST time in a long time that they were watched back-to-back-to-back. And for the first time - the very first time - I noticed that Marty McFly’s “chicken” thing wasn’t introduced until the second movie. And in the first movie he was actually a chicken and knew it. And in the second movie, which takes place…what? Two minutes later? He gets called a chicken and says, “Nobody calls me a chicken!” as if his “no one calls me a chicken” thing is something he’s always lived with!
And then I realized (or theorized) that the reason why his character changed so drastically between the two movies is because the Back to the Future II Marty McFly grew up under George McFly 2.0, the guy who punched out Biff and became a famous sci-fi writer. George McFly 2.0 would have taught his son to never back down to anyone. “When I was your age, son, I took a stand…and look at me now! Never be afraid to stand your ground. Never be a chicken.”
The day George McFly became George McFly 2.0 by knocking out Biff is the day Marty McFly’s past was changed - and Marty McFly 2.0 does not like to be called a chicken. So his character change wasn’t an oversight in the script - it was yet another clever way to tie all the time-travel stuff together.
I’m sure I’m the last person on earth to figure this out but it blew my mind anyways.
Also - still no power at the house. Spending a second day and maybe night in this hotel room. What will I discover next?
