Monster Lovers

I feel like I'm a little bit late to this party - it seems so obvious now - but have you noticed how in every monster movie ever made there's always one character (more often than not the mad scientist to blame for whatever it was that happened in Act 1) who wants to save the monster? They want to stop the shrinking number of humans involved in the narrative from killing it, figure out some way to communicate with it, study it, reanimate the flesh of a dead woman to provide the monster with a mate, maybe move it to a small farm in upstate Vermont.

I'm more of a nuke the site from orbit kind of guy.

I get it. Monsters can be misunderstood, too. I do feel that pain. Did anyone ever support me in my dream of becoming a chart-topping pop singer? No. And yes, that might not meet the technical definition of "misunderstanding" if I'm being at all objective. All right. So I wasn't a "generational talent" (whatever that means) and there was nothing "special" about my vocal abilities. Okay. I do appreciate the honesty but I was just looking for a little emotional support. Apparently, it was too much to ask.

That pain is real.

I feel you, monster.

And accidents happen. When you make a mistake while working with the massive power of intergalactic technology it can easily result in hundreds if not thousands of deaths in a single, simple slip and fall. Even the slightest of miscalculations could lead to disastrous results. Maybe that shrug gesture in your monster body language doesn't mean you don't care; maybe it means, "I'm really sorry about vaporizing Super Bowl LVI and everyone in it; I just lost my temper watching that smirky, dimple-chinned Tom Brady winning another Lombardi Trophy and before I knew what was happening I was punching in the launch codes."

Hey, a lot of people have been there, monster. Only all they had at hand was an AR-15 and a TV to kill. You're really not that different from most Atlanta Falcons' fans, are you?

(Also, no hating on Tom Brady here. Shut your monster pie hole or take it outside, okay?)

What if you're a gigantic monster? Six stories tall and 80 metric tons of radioactive property damage waiting to happen. Should you be held responsible for everything - and everyone - you step on? Is it really your fault that you're so big? (And apparently nearsighted.) The little monsters started making fun of you all the way back in third grade after your first growth spurt. They laughed at your clumsy attempts to play dodgeball in gym class. They posted videos on social media of you crashing through the bleachers - absolutely crushing the bleachers - at that middle school assembly. You've grown into a mountainous monster with body image issues that no amount of psychoanalysis and self-help books have been able to diminish and which several thousand pints of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream could not anesthetize. 

Oh, no! I stepped on someone else? I hate myself! 

That's all well and good. I like to think myself as being as empathetic as the next guy (setting the bar low, I know) but faced with existential doom there's only so much sympathy I can muster for the monster. I'm thinking my brother-in-law knows something about explosives. It's not exactly a nuclear option but it just might come in handy.