OMG!! It's Armageddon!!

I promised my sister I would write this blog about Armageddon.  Not the actual end of the world, but the movie, and not because we like the movie, but Danny's obsession with all that is the movie Armageddon.  It has been going on for YEARS!  More than 2 or 3....we're talking like 10!!  Danny has literally gone through at least 4 video cassettes and I don't even know how many DVD's of this movie.  It's a characteristic of autistic kids to obsess over some things.  Some kids like cars, some balls, some dinosaurs.  Mine likes Armageddon.  I wanted to give a little background on why I was writing this, and now I would like to re-live some of the more humorous experiences this movie has given my family.

Danny has gone through I don't even know how many of those styrofoam space shuttles you use to be able to buy from craft stores.  At one point I stocked up because wings were always getting broken off during their disastrous flights.  He has a (very thick) folder of printouts of all the characters.  He found a way to shrink them down and glue the faces to tiny little foam astronauts!  I thought that was clever!  >    >     >      >      >      >      See!!  >     >

I remember coming home one day after Jim and I were maybe at the grocery store and finding Danny in the living room, chained (with his plastic link chains) to the Ab Lounger he had brought up from the basement (Man!  I wish I had a picture!!).  He was acting out crash scenes (as they happened on TV) and he was "strapped in a shuttle seat".  Jim and I just looked at each other and burst out laughing!  What else can you do when your teenager is thrashing around while chained to an Ab Lounger?

My all time favorite Armageddon story is when Danny came walking through the living room in slow motion...really!  It looked like the 6 Million Dollar Man was strolling through (you young folks won't understand that reference)!  I asked him "What are you doing??"  He said "I'm walking like an astronaut!".  I think Diet Pepsi might have come out of my nose at that point!  Jim and I still occasionally walk through the house like astronauts just for fun!

He keeps trying to change the movie.  He complains to me all the time (still) about changes that they should make to the shuttles so that the one doesn't collide with part of the asteroid...force fields, beaming people to the surface....things like that.  I told him to write to Bruce Willis and let him know.  I have to remind him often that IT IS JUST A MOVIE!!!!!  He claims he knows that, but in the next breath he is complaining about something else that they screwed up!

Our son can quote the WHOLE movie word for word.  We had the cover of the DVD scanned onto one of his birthday cakes.  THAT made him very happy!  He has space bed sheets that he still uses.  We haven't seen the movie in a while (thank God!) and we don't bring it up because it could start another marathon.  I hear the opening segment and I want to run screaming from the room!  I have lost all respect for Bruce Willis and Ben Afleck all because of that movie.  I don't care what they have done since.  Once you have seen Armageddon over 2,000 times (no exaggeration) you really notice how bad it really is.  The acting sucks and the special effects are bad.  BUT it has made Danny happy for many years, so it does have ONE good point.

Danny and his favorite Aunt Shoo!!