December 6, 2020
Movie Night at the Cottage
We are in the basement of the cottage trying to find a movie we will all agree on. There are now nine of us. The advance team, tasked not with finding a movie but merely narrowing the choices, has been here for an hour already. They have managed to narrow it down to every movie available on Netflix. It is 11:00. Coffee has been brewed. Popcorn has been popped. Blankets both shared and monopolized. Everyone knows not to sit in my chair. Caroline, my sister in law, will not watch a movie she has seen before. She wants a thriller. Something with a little action in it. Preferably a film not made before 2019. Four of us will be asleep within 30 minutes. These four, of course, are those arguing the most vehemently. We watch a lot of trailers. We finally settle on a drug smuggling movie which appears to have been made straight to video. I look it up on Rotten Tomatoes. 12% I say. Someone tells me where I can shove my Rotten Tomatoes. Rena presses play but then pauses when she sees Dan make a dash for the bathroom. He says to start but Rena won’t. She is too nice. Samantha defends her husband. He drinks a lot of water she says.
Caroline, god bless her, announces we can cut our losses at the 11-minute mark. It is 11 minutes I will never get back.
It is a false start. This is par for the course. We never watch the first movie we choose.
Back to scrolling Netflix.
Rena hesitates for a second at the 2012 high school movie based on the novel. The Perks of Being a Wallflower. She pauses long enough for the gathered peanut gallery to vote. Turns out only Rachie and I have seen it before. Rachie says she would watch it again.
At this point Rachie would be perfectly within her rights to say “Uncle Ronnie ruined this movie for me the first time.” Which was true. I did. Instead, she says “Uncle Ronnie took me to the world premiere.”
I mean seriously, how great is that?
In September 2012 my niece Rachie and I went to a Toronto International Film Festival double header. At 6:00 we went to the world premiere of The Perks of Being a Wallflower and then drove to King Street to have dinner at Il Fornello before walking down the street to watch the world premiere of the cop thriller End of Watch, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena.
I parked on King Street right in front of the restaurant.
At dinner I may have rambled a little about film making and storytelling and about the difference between good foreshadowing and lazy predictable foreshadowing - see line above about parking on King Street. Rachie insists, in a statement which says all you need to know about how good natured she is, that I didn’t ruin the movie for her at all. She loved both movies, each of which included a Q and A with the film’s director and stars, and thanked me profusely. But while she may not remember it as the night I ruined a movie for her, she does remember it as the night my car got towed.
The perfect spot in front of the restaurant on King Street turned out to be a little too perfect.
I have heard Rachie tell this story. To her sisters. To her boyfriend. “So Uncle Ronnie sticks out his hand, flags down a taxi, and asks him to take us to the car pound. He does it as naturally as if he is ordering a tuna fish sandwich. He wasn’t mad or upset.”
Icarus.
I flew a little close to the sun.
I took a chance and lost. I am neither proud nor ashamed of it. The police impound lot was only fifteen minutes away. Madison Street Impound. They took Visa. The guy behind the desk, Mitch, could not have been nicer. I guess he wasn’t used to smiling customers. I told him about the movies we just watched. We got the car and drove home. Rachie asked me why I needed to talk to everyone. I said, that’s just what I do. Even with the towed car, it was a great night.
This story however, is not about the night I had my car towed. It is about the week I had my car towed twice. Four nights after going to film festival movies with Rachie, I went to another TIFF movie. This time, I truly and honestly wasn’t trying to get away with anything. I just didn’t see the fire hydrant. My car got towed again. True story. I never wrote about it before because although getting your car towed twice in the same week should be a good enough story, it really needed an ending. I could never figure it out. But tonight, it came to me.
The key is Mitch.
So here it is.
I go to the movie with a woman I have been on a few dates with. A woman I really like. Let’s call her Amanda. No, I have used Amanda before. Let’s call her Mindy. Mindy has found a couple of unpaid parking tickets in my glove compartment. She expresses her displeasure at my cavalier attitude about parking tickets, money, and authority. She fears my irresponsibility precludes me from having a serious relationship. This is where I do a bit about how every good press agent knows the best approach is to get in front of a story so you can control it. But I don’t do that. I don’t mention that the two parking tickets have fifty or so companions. I certainly don’t mention that my car was towed on Saturday night.
Here’s where I get a break. The fire hydrant is actually not really directly in front of the spot where my car used to be. It’s a little off to the side. Mindy gives me the benefit of the doubt. Do I know where they may have towed it? I don't tell her I have Madison Street Impound in my contacts. No, I say, this has never happened to me before.
We call a cab.
It looks like I am going to get away with it. That is -
Until Mitch says “Welcome back Ron. Isn’t that twice in one week? We will have to give you frequent flyer miles.”
It’s pretty funny. I think it works. Not bad for a first draft. Maybe I stretch the scene a little. Add a little color. Allie will tell me to describe Mindy. Maybe also do a better job of setting up the scene in the car pound office. Were there other people there? Were they angry? Maybe paint a contrast. She’ll tell me to include the name of the other movie. It’s not a big deal she will say. But it is a nice detail.
I can’t remember the movie though. I Google the list of 2012 movies but can’t find it. I look at the list again. Nothing looks familiar. I don’t really need the name of the movie. I can pick any of the 275 movies on the list. But now I am curious.
It is 10:39 on a Saturday night.
I text Dani.
Dani Ben Dat was my first employee at Tumbleweed. For a while, she was my only employee. Going to a movie at TIFF was a tradition we started at Tumbleweed and one we continued when we remained good friends after she left. We went every year. I had gone to the movie with Dani. I had been with her when my car got towed. I had told her the story of having been towed only a few nights before. In fact, her husband Avi, rescued us and drove us to the car pound.
There is no Mitch.
“What was the name of the TIFF movie we saw in 2012 the night my car was towed?”
“OMG that is trivia I can’t pull out of my head right now. Sorry.”
Dani and Avi have 5 children. It is 10:40 on Saturday night. It makes sense.
“No prob. I will find it.”
“Do you have a list of the movies from that year?”
“I do but I don’t recognize any of them. No worries. It’s not important.”
“I can look at the list. Do you want to send it to me?”
“I can. But it really doesn’t matter.”
“Hold on. Let me think. Wasn’t it about alcoholics. With Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad?”
“I think you are right.”
I look up his movies. Smashed. 2012. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Mary Elizabeth Winstead sat two rows from us.
“Smashed. Nice job.”
“Smashed. That’s it. You writing the towed car story?”
“Yeah.”
“You better make me look good!”
“How can I not!”
It’s true. How can I not. There will be no all tied up in a bow Mindy ending. This time, I am just going to go with the truth. I am ok with that. Nothing wrong with the truth.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower has 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. Caroline, Dov, Dan, Daniel and Samantha all fall asleep well before the end. Rena, Danna and Rachel all love it. I say it is better than I remember. It actually is.
“Look at you Uncle Ronnie,” teases Danna. “You are a changed man. Maybe you will now even start parking legally.”
“That’s crazy talk,” I say with a laugh. Then I grab my phone and check my contacts. It’s still there. Madison Street Impounds.
Just in case.
The end.