The Movie

Over Christmas break I played the old Trivial Pursuit game with my son.  He answered questions from a pack of cards from the BBC show “Doctor Who,” and I had him question me from the original pack of Trivia cards from the 1980s.  I purchased the game back then and that decade might well be the last time I played it.  We won’t even go to the place that has to explain why I still own something I haven’t used for over thirty years. 

What was funny though, is that during the game, I found myself digging up a few memories from the 80s that had somehow slipped past me the last few decades.  One question reminded me that I was in a movie once – as an extra.  It was a made for TV movie that was filmed on my college campus in Southern California.  I got paid thirty bucks for pretty much standing around all day, waiting for the scene to be shot.  The scene was very brief, but enough to land me a date.

As it turned out, the New Year’s Eve after the movie was filmed, but before it was released, I was invited to sail to Catalina Island with some friends.  After we drank champagne and the bottle was empty, I put a note in it and threw it overboard.  I don’t remember what I wrote, but it was pretty witty, I’m sure.

A few months later, I got a call from a guy that had rented an island to go wild boar hunting up in the Santa Barbara Island chain and that’s where he found my bottle.  He was intrigued by what I’d written.  We chatted a long time and he finally asked me to send him a photo of myself.  As it turned out, the movie I was in was going to be on TV the next day so I told him the scene I was in and what I was wearing and he could just turn on the TV and check me out, thus saving me a postage stamp and a selfie.  It was pretty incredible timing.

No sooner had the scene aired than my phone rang and he asked me out.  We met at the fanciest restaurant in town and enjoyed a wonderful evening.  He was a bit old for me, and way too rich for my blood, so that ended that, but it was a fun experience just the same.

As I relived those memories, I realized I’d never actually seen the entire movie I was in because I got a call in the middle of it.  Thanks to Amazon, I found a VHS copy and bought it.

I was with my little buddy that lived with us for a few months, when the movie arrived a few days ago.  I opened the package in front of him and told him I was in that movie.  “You were in a movie?” he said, “Well that explains why you have so much stuff.” 

                      

I didn’t have the heart to tell him it wasn’t the whopping thirty bucks I earned that day that filled my house with things, but more like the thirty years of stuff I just haven’t gotten rid of.