Confessions Of A Splenda Stealer

I sleep with the TV on. I know it’s not good for me, thanks to all those studies that say how any ambient light during sleep is bad for your health. Whateves. I don’t like complete darkness. The other huge problem with this is that I often wake up to find something really bizarre playing on the television waves.

Last night around 2 am I awoke to someone screaming bloody murder on the TV–just another confirmation that I should turn off the TV before I go to bed–but first, I had to investigate what was on. A film with Nick Nolte, a very young Juliette Lewis and Jessica Lange had just found a man strangled in their kitchen from a metal wire…in his own pool of blood. Lovely. That image will get me right back to my REM sleep, for sure. But, as my curiosity usually gets the best of me, I had to watch for a few more minutes to see what the hell this movie was, as my remote got lost in my covers and I couldn’t not find the “info” button.

But alas, I didn’t have to wait too long before figuring out what the film was–the music tipped me off, and then a scene where a man who followed the family by hiding underneath their car as they drove to a houseboat on a cape. While the sign for the cape did give away the movie (Cape Fear), between the music and the imagery of the man hiding underneath the car–what of course popped into my head? That’s right–The Simpsons’ parody of the movie, in its episode titled “Cape Feare.” Immediately, I was able to recognize the film because I had seen the same scene in the cartoon–where Sideshow Bob tries to kill Bart on the houseboat, then finishes with the score from the HMS Pinafore. Of course, there was no opera singing in this movie, but instead, graphic violence that I laughed at–I was laughing at a murder scene at 2 am in the morning. I was laughing right after being woken up to a blood curdling scream because all I can picture instead of a creepy murderer played by Robert De Niro is Sideshow Bob continually walking into rakes that smack him in the face. (If you have seen this episode, you know how funny this is.)

I am nuts.