Think about the last 20 years of your life.  What has happened?  How have you changed?  Do you remember where you were 20 years ago?

Because we were responsible parents, Bob and I were sitting in a movie theater watching Dumb and Dumber.

Twenty years ago Bob and I had four kids at home, ages 15, 13, 10 and 7.  We were in the throes of parenting.  Our oldest two had broken into the teen years.  Everything was shifting.  We were going from navigating our children through Disney movies to a pop culture which we weren’t comfortable with and which we didn’t want influencing them.

Before the kids could go to a movie, Bob and I would go see it and give it a thumbs-up or down.  This was a pain sometimes.  We didn’t particularly want to see Dumb and Dumber, but we were told, “Everyone was going to see it.”  Our oldest assured us that he could handle it (my least favorite phrase ever).

So we slinked into a Friday afternoon matinée hoping no one would see us.  We grabbed our popcorn and diet coke and braced ourselves to watch a stupid movie.

Now, I am good for an easy laugh.  I write a humor blog for goodness sakes.  But I was not prepared for this movie.  Bob and I laughed so hard we almost fell out of our seats.

Our kids were waiting at home for the results.  We came home and told them, “This was one of the funniest movies we have ever seen.  We laughed until diet coke nearly squirted out of our noses.  You would love this movie, but you can’t go see it.  It’s crude and inappropriate in so many places.  We’re sorry.”

There went our Popular Parent award.

Now our kids are all grown.  Full disclosure – we own this movie (though we won’t let our grandchildren watch it.)  So can you guess what we’re doing this weekend?  That’s right, going to see Dumb and Dumber To.  It’s not to preview it for our children; we want to see what old age is like for Harry and Lloyd.  We need to answer the dramatic question – Did poor little Billy get scarred for life by holding a dead bird which had its head taped on?  And will we ever know what became of that little home-wrecker Fraida Felcher?  Mostly, we want a good laugh with a little story wrapped around it.

Our youngest son Scott has offered to go see this first and make sure it is suitable for us.  We assured him we can handle it.