~ The Avengers ~

My Captain took me to see the movie ‘The Avengers’ tonight.  It was wonderful, of course.  The music, the story, the technology to make it so real…all of it immensely entertaining.

Oddly, it was none of those things that made the movie worth the price of the $10.00 ticket.

What made it worth that obscene cost (for when I grew up you could go see movies for a dollar,) was the eye-opener it gave me.

We were leaving the theater.  There was a girl across the street from me in a wheelchair.  I had just watched a story about heroes and self-sacrifice, and honor and magnanimity.  And I was limping to our car on my bad knee.

The knee I’ve been whining about ad nauseam.  The knee I’ve been feeling sorry for myself about so verbosely.  The knee I’ve been complaining about and making excuses for and looking for sympathy with.

And there was that little girl moving so purposefully down the sidewalk in what looked like a very permanent wheel chair.

And I had just come out of a movie about heroes.

And I felt very stupid.

And whiny.

And sorry for her.

There is this scene where Captain America, unimpressed with Stark, aka Ironman, asks Stark, “Big man in a suit of armour.  Take that suit away and what are you?

And Stark replies, “A Genius. Billionaire. Playboy. Philanthropist.”

And Thor laughed.

I loved that scene.

But I came out of the movie asking myself the same question.

And I don’t want the answer to be, “A self-absorbed whiner.”

So I’m done bitching about my knee.

But I wish I had a really cool red iron suit, too.