"The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles make me feel kind of sad," I confessed, "because they will never know the love of a woman."
"What are you talking about?"
My boyfrusband and I were exiting the theater after a Saturday night showing of TMNT, which was last weekend's No. 1 movie. Never say that we are not balanced on the cutting edge of cultural hipness.
"I mean that they are teenagers, presumably riddled with adolescent hormones, yet they can't have girlfriends."
"Why not?"
"Well, I guess they could have platonic friendships. But they don't seem to be exactly equipped for romantic relations, if you get what I mean."
"Emotionally equipped?"
"No," I said. "What I am saying is that it seems like something went wrong in the mutating ooze that resulted in the turtles not needing to wear any pants."
"Oh," he said. "Well, I don't think they want girlfriends. They are happy just being crime-fighters. A relationship would just complicate things."
"What are you talking about? Everyone wants a relationship." I glanced at him suspiciously. "Don't they?"
"Um, yes," he said, unlocking the car. "Women make life better in every way."
"That's right!" I said, ignoring his slightly robotic recitation. "Ooh, Junior Mints!" I exclaimed, discovering the almost-empty box still in my pocket. I shook the candy into my hand and dropped the box on the floorboard. "Life without a relationship is barren and empty," I continued, my mouth full of chocolate.
"And clean," he muttered.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Anyway," I continued, "maybe it's best that the turtles don't have anything to distract them from their important work. I know that if I were dating one of them, I'd worry a lot about his safety as he ran around fighting the Foot Clan with a couple of big forks. What's wrong with automatic weapons, anyway? I guess with those giant fingers they might not have the manual dexterity to operate triggers. Also, I just thought of something. How come all that pizza doesn't make them fat? Don't cold-blooded reptiles have extremely slow metabolisms? Hey, are you even listening to me?"
I looked at him and his face was wistful. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said. "I was just wishing I were a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle."
Discuss the value of automatic weapons with Jessica at jburgess@quickdfw.com.
