WALL-E & Me

As Fate and Destiny would have it, the stars aligned and an old friend from the past contacted me because he thought it would be cool to hang out with me again. The reason was because he went to go see a movie today and I was working Box Office. He wanted to get to my line but couldn't due to time and customer traffic. So I got a text message from him.

Frustrated with my day at work, I ran out of the break room after clocking out of my ten-hour long shift to watch WALL-E. I'm not going to right a review about it, though I will say that I find it odd how I was in a theatre full of families and nobody had any big reactions to the movie during any of the emotional scenes. What I am going to talk about is the film's use of the idea of extending a hand out to someone in greeting.

Just a while ago, when I got the text message from my old friend, I called him up and talked to him for a good while. Our conversation went from happy to hear each other's voice to being very honest with each other on a level that neither one of us was comfortable with. We made plans to meet this Thursday afternoon to hang out for a few hours.

Sitting here, reflecting on both the movie and my phone call, I cannot help but feel a bit like the little lonely robot. A hopeless romantic who, for lack of a better word, yearns for something that cannot be given to him but in a fairy tale. But the silver lining with this pessimistic view is that you can often get that happy ending once the conditions play into your favor.

To say that I'm hopeful something will come out of this would be a lie. I doubt anything will other than being able to hang out again with an old friend whose company I enjoy. I've already fantasied about the most simple and heart-warming possibility that could happen if we are going to watch WALL-E, which means that scenario won't happen. No, instead, the two of us are going to just hang out as friends.

I mean, I'm already making a conscious effort to not be so candid about my personal life in places and with people where it clearly isn't appropriate for that kind of subject matter to come up. That's the kind of thing I should be posting on the blog, and not some Spore creature's booty dance that I couldn't stop laughing at for a good half hour after watching it.