I just recently saw the second theatrical trailer for Amazing Grace (bless you, YouTube, bless you), and I have to say, it’s amazing how two different trailers can elicit two different responses. If I had only seen one of these trailers, and had it been trailer two, I wouldn’t have wanted to see the movie — trailer 2 is boring, dragging, and doesn’t make me say “Gosh, I’d love to see this.” Actually, it says, “Eh, maybe I’ll put it on my Netflix queue.” The first trailer was far superior.

My first delivery was to the local Toyota Dealership’s Parts Department. I showed up, heard people in the back, but no one was at the front counter, so I rang the little silver bell. No one comes up front, and I can still hear people in the back, so after a moment or too, I rang the bell again. Repeat ad naseum for about three minutes, until an irritated looking guy came out and said, “Will you please only ring the bell once?”

“Sorry, I didn’t know if you could hear me.”

“We heard you, just ring it once.” At this point, I really felt about telling him, “Buddy, I’m not a fucking psychic. Could you’ve maybe just shouted something like ‘be there in a minute’ or ‘hey, knock that shit off’ or something that could indicate to me that, yes, indeed, you have heard me? Because, like I said, I’m not a fucking psychic.”

But because I wasn’t a psychic, and because I didn’t want to completely piss this guy off if he’s the dude who was going to be tipping me, I kept my mouth shut. Indeed, he wasn’t, and someone else came out and gave me a decent tip, and I left with this thought in my mind: “Fuck you and your overpriced parts department*, buddy, how hard would it’ve been to make any sort of acknowledgement that you knew I was there?” Not fucking hard at all.

Now, mind you, yes, if you shouted “Be right there!” and I kept ringing that stupid bell, by all means, kick my ass. Otherwise, fuck off. Or leave a sign. Maybe something that says, “Please Only Ring Once, Even Though We Won’t Acknowledge You Verbally, Yes, We’ve Heard You And The More You Ring The Longer It’ll Take Us To Show Up. Danke.”

*$60 lightbulb?! Give me a fucking break.

These are the definitions of “Babel”:

1. an ancient city in the land of Shinar in which the building of a tower (Tower of Babel) intended to reach heaven was begun and the confusion of the language of the people took place. Gen. 11:4–9.
2. (usually lowercase) a confused mixture of sounds or voices.
3. (usually lowercase) a scene of noise and confusion.

Now, if you’d like to see a motion picture demonstration of those latter two, go see the Brad Pitt flick “Babel” which came out on DVD this week. Actually, it’s worth it for the full frontal nudity of Rinko Kikuchi.

No. I take that back. No, it isn’t, it’s fucking awful.