Ladies, help me out. I’m at at a loss, I know men and women are different, we’re supposed to be, but what is the deal with chick flicks and tragedy?

There are two women in my home; my wife, La Gringa, and my ten year old daughter, Her Royal Hiney, Isa. I cannot count the times I am run out of my bedroom for chick flick marathons. These two cuddle and giggle and chatter in low voices amongst themselves. They make popcorn, grab ice cream and enter their own world. What are they saying? What is the secret, what’s the obsession? At first I thought my wife had thrown me a curve ball and had found a way to girly girl Isa, but I notice many times Isa finds the movie and calls her Mother in. After that I thought maybe it was just my two girls that were a tad off but I’ve noticed when Isa has friends over it resembles a mini chick flick cult gathering. Is a natural, female inherited trait?

How many times can they watch Grease? I hid the damn dvd, it came back, not the dvd, but the movie, on public television. I feel as if John Travolta is trying to screw with me, personally. Why the hell do broadcasting stations still program a movie that is as old as the hills, and why so ofton? Do you know what it’s like to have 9 girls and the wife singing songs from Grease at a volumne that defies human condition? It’s not even close to being in any way enjoyable, correct, or natural.

Chick flicks I could probably, if I really tried hard enough, grasp a basic understanding, but what about the tragedy obsession? I came home on Friday to an empty house. I knew the boys were gone, but the girls should have been home. I started walking up the stairs and began to panic when I heard muffled cries, two soft, sobbing voices, coming from the bedroom. My heart skipped a beat, I flung open the door prepared to face my worse fears, what did I find...Seabiscuit. My wife and daughter were each swollen eyed and weeping into a pillow over Seabiscuit breaking his leg, again. I say “again” because I should have known, it wasn’t the first time that filthy horse kicked me in the ass.

I’m a pretty rational man, I see my wife and daughter on the verge of a complete meltdown and I react. I grabbed the remote, went to turn off the tv, and it happened. With the swiftness of a lioness protecting her cub, my wife recovered the remote as Isa’s eyes narrowed and left nostril flared. I knew what was coming. We were going to have a Mexican stand off. These two felt injustice. They can sense it, maybe even smell it, like sharks with blood. I tried to explain I was only trying to help, they felt I had berated their joyous girly depression. I honestly felt like I was in the room with a couple of multiple personality sufferers for a moment. I asked them both, with complete sincerity, “Why would you want to watch something, if you are so saddened by it”? To which they both replied in unison “Because we like it, you wouldn’t understand.”

They’re right, I’m clueless, I don’t even know if my girls know why. If anybody has some insight into this mystery, help a man out..Share with me, before the next chick flick mini cult reunion on Friday .

Thanks, Oscar