The Tear Jerker (i.e. why I should file a lawsuit against Warner Bros.)

Me, after watching this movie.

I don’t cry pretty, little girly tears, accompanied by feminine little sniffles. When I cry, it is U-G-L-Y. Splotchy redness - especially on the nose; swollen, red eyes and overall facial puffiness. Snot flows forth from my nostrils with a ferocity topped only by Niagara Falls or my husband’s morning pee. 

So when I went with some friends to the theater this past weekend to see the jerkingest of tear jerker movies I have ever seen, it was not pretty. I won’t get into what movie it was because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but suffice it to say I have never cried so much at a film, ever. And I have seen both “Old Yeller” and “Beaches.” It took all my willpower to stop the sobs from escaping in big, hyperventilating gasps that would disturb everyone else in the theater. 

I had a package of tissues in my purse, but when the tears and snot started flowing, they came out so aggressively, I did not have time to dig in the black hole that is my purse to find them. So I had to grab the first thing I could: Chipotle napkins I’d stuffed in there weeks ago. (I always take whatever napkins I don’t use from a restaurant. For occasions such as this. Or when my kid spills something. Or when I want to buy fewer napkins for my house.) While excellent for salsa removal from one’s fingers, a Chipotle napkin is not a wise choice for a swollen nose that is spewing forth devastation-driven mucus. I’d gotten myself together, and then tragedy struck again in the movie, and again, the only thing I had time to obtain before I’d soaked myself with tears and snot was another Chipotle napkin. Obviously, I should have been more prepared. 

When the movie was over, I had to go to the bathroom to get myself back together. And also because I drank a big Icee and my bladder was full, but mostly because my friends and I were going out to dinner afterward and I didn’t want to look like an emotionally overwrought circus clown. One of my friends also had to use the facilities, while the three others remained in the lobby discussing the moral implications of the movie we’d just seen. 

So as I’m shutting the door to my bathroom stall, the head of a girl who I’d guess was about 7 years old popped in. Like I almost shut her head in the stall door. Then she looked at me, her face colored with concern, and said, “What movie did you see?!” I told her, and then said it was really sad. I wasn’t sure where else to go from there, as her face was still preventing me from closing the door to pee, and she seemed like she still wanted to talk. So I asked her what movie she saw. 

“The Alice in Wonderland one.”

“Was it sad, too?”

“Hmm-mmm.” (Shakes head.)

“Oh. I’m going to pee now, OK?”

“OK.” 

Then she left. I could hear my friend who came in with me snickering a few stalls down. When we’d both finished our business and came out, she said, “What was that about?”

“I think that 7-year-old girl was really, really worried about whether I was going to be OK. I guess I look pretty rough.”

I proceeded to reapply all my mascara and try to tamp down the redness of my nose with some powder. I think I looked semi-normal by the time we got to the restaurant. But the pain wasn’t over yet. 

See, when my son was 11 months old, he lacerated my cornea with a stick. The doctor told me it was so bad, my “eyeball almost burst.” I didn’t even know that was a thing that could happen. Ever since then, it gives me occasional trouble (and my vision in that eye got twice as bad). Particularly when I sleep, it dries up, and when I open my eyes again, it peels a little bit of the cornea off and feels awful. This is especially bad after I’ve been crying. And the more I cry, the worse it is. So I put my special eye drops in before bed to prevent this. (And then I took melatonin because I knew there was no way I was going to fall asleep on my own with the devastating events of the movie - which yes, was entirely fictional - running through my head.) I put the drops in again in the middle of the night when I woke up with discomfort. I put them in again when I woke up in the morning. But my eye still felt absolutely wretched. It felt like someone had poured sand and salt in it and just rubbed it around with a rock. I used up my ridiculously expensive eye drops.

I think all of this adds up to a pretty good lawsuit against the movie’s creators for emotional distress (for both me AND the little girl who I clearly disturbed by my very ugly-cried appearance in the theater bathroom) and physical damages (nose rubbed raw by a Chipotle napkin and a sandy eye, anyone?). Smarmy attorneys, take note, and leave your contact information in the comments.