It all started with an email from Kevin a few days before Christmas that said "Jessica says you must watch Arthur Christmas before Christmas. Hurry! You don't have much time."
I had no idea what he was talking about but dutifully went to amazon.com to look for Arthur, since I had managed to forget the "Christmas" part of "Arthur Christmas". I saw it was a movie, watched a clip, and bought it. However, to get free shipping I needed to spend $25, so I bought another movie that amazon said people who bought Arthur also would like ("Tootsie"), and a book I've intended to give a friend but want to read myself first. That gave me the requisite over $25. However, the free shipping option would get the order to me after Christmas and we had been instructed to watch it before Christmas. The website warned me of this and said if I signed up for a free one month trial membership in Amazon Prime, I could get 2 day shipping and my order would arrive on Dec. 24. I could cancel Amazon Prime any time in that free month and not have to pay the $79 annual fee. So I signed up.
I told Johnny what I was doing and he said, "Didn't we already watch Arthur?"
"No, I've never even heard of it."
"Are you sure? I think we have it."
"We don't have it. We've never seen it. I watched a clip on the web and I'd never seen it before. ... But I'll go look to make sure."
So I scanned the racks of videotapes in our bedroom and found no Arthur.
On Dec. 24, Arthur arrived. By that time, I had reread the email and realized Kevin wrote "Arthur Christmas". I went back to amazon. The movie Jessica wanted us to watch is an animated tale, not at all like the Arthur DVD that was now sitting in our living room, along with Tootsie and the book "When Women Were Birds" (a most excellent book, by the way.)
We talked to Kevin and family by phone that afternoon and I told him the mistake I'd made. He laughed and said, "I ordered Arthur Christmas for you," (Kevin already had Amazon Prime) "but I forgot to change the shipping address and it came here instead."
"So you can watch "Arthur Christmas" tonight!" I enthused.
"We've already seen it, Mom."
Johnny and I watched "Arthur" on Christmas Eve. About two-thirds of the way through the movie I suddenly realized we'd seen it before. I said, "We've seen this before."
"Yeah," agreed Johnny, "I've been thinking that for awhile now."
We both laughed. This is not unusual for us... this forgetting we've seen a movie we're watching. Johnny figures we could see the same movie over and over and not know it... if we just waited a year or so between showings.
After Arthur was over, we agreed it wasn't much better than the first time, whenever that was.(Although the butler was funny.) Maybe we'd rented it with the Netflix 3 month trial that Kevin and Jessica had given us a few years back? Ah well, we'd try for Arthur Christmas next year. We had another good laugh, did chores, took showers, and went to bed. Johnny got there before I did. When I walked into the bedroom he said, "I want you to look at the videos in that rack," and he pointed at the rack hanging on the back of the closet door. "What is the first video on the top shelf?"
It was Arthur.
How I missed seeing it, I don't know.
But I swear the clip I watched was not in the movie we watched on Christmas Eve. I wonder what that movie is?
I hope I can remember to cancel my Amazon Prime membership.
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