Turmoil in the Household

Our little family is slowly remembering how to function. It's a little messy after we've been at school for so long--Claire stayed in Troy last summer and I didn't come home for spring break. Having four of us at once is a little stressful--especially given my penchant for leaving my stuff everywhere and Claire's habit of yelling at me about it.

Naturally, disagreements happen. The most recent has grave implications. And it involves Netflix.

This is the type of stuff Edward Albee would write plays about these days. Instead of marital strife, awkward dinner parties, and drunkeness, we are at war over Justin Bieber. Yes, I should start from the beginning.

I commandeered our account this past semester because I was taking a class in which I had to watch an incredibly weird foreign film every week, and couldn't make the class screenings. These movies were all strangely similar and basically followed the rule that if you were a sexually promiscuous woman, you would die in an extremely random but blatantly metaphorical manner. And that was basically the entire plot, and it wasted about 2 and a half hours of my extremely valuable time. ANYWAY, I'll end this tangent. The point is that I used up my claim to movie choice prior to returning home.

Dad is, in general, not too interested in movies unless they are based off a book he read or are a Bourne Identity sequel. We all love Matt Damon. It's not weird. Really. Really?

Mom has been using the account to watch Sex and the City from the very beginning. When this show was actually on the air she had better things to do, like raising children, than figuring out if she was a Charlotte or a Carrie and wondering what the heck these women were wearing. So we had been recieving these DVDs regularly in the mail.

Claire likes movies that are happy. Actually, Claire only likes movies that are happy. I believe I may be at fault in this. It was I who dragged her to see Sweeney Todd, only telling her that it was a musical. After (spoiler alert) people were repeatedly murdered and baked into pies by a grief-stricken psycho and later shoved into a furnace by a small child, she turned to me and exclaimed, "YOU SAID IT WAS A MUSICAL. MUSICALS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPY." From about that day, we watched happy movies. Most of these were animated. Others involved attractive people falling in love. None of these romances were star-crossed.

So, at the recommendation of her sorority sisters, Claire decided she needed to see the Justin Bieber movie. These were the main reasons given:
1. It is true.
2. It is undoubtedly happy, because a 16 year old ends up being a millionaire.
3. Catchy pop music! Songs of young, innocent love!
4. SHINY THINGS
5. Also, Canadians!

(Disclaimer: numbers 4 and 5 are not actually real. Those are just extrapolations I've made from the given arguments.)

After much lobbying, Claire succeeded in getting the movie onto the top of our queue. This required many significant lectures and work on her part. This was the turmoil referenced in the blog title. It felt endless. I am pretty sure Dad still has no idea who Justin Bieber is and doesn't want to on principle, and Mom thinks we are receiving a DVD entirely about fancy haircuts and screaming pre-teens. But that is beside the point. The point is, yesterday Justin Bieber arrived in our household, and Claire,the one who isn't at all interested in law or political strategy, has won.

Don't get me wrong, Claire appreciates good music. 80 percent of my iPod has been suggested by her. But, she also enjoys making our parents roll their eyes, and winning. Also, based on these events, I am pretty sure she likes liking things ironically.


And that, my friends, is the biggest problem my family faces today. Now you are free to pay attention to real issues! Like the Greek budget crisis and related protests, or the Kardashians.