Sliding Doors

The Virgin Megastore at Union Square is going out of business, maybe because of the recession and such, and is subsequently having a huge "Going out of Business Sale!" Everything in the store is discounted 20%. I was purposely avoiding going into the store, knowing that if I did I would inevitably buy something and then feel remorseful (I suffer from extreme buyer's remorse on just about everything; I bought a booklet of stamps today and felt remorse). But after talking with my friend Raul, who had just come from there, I decided to make a stop after leaving a hectic day at the theater with the festival.

I'm glad to say I made it out with only spending $4.30. It helped that, even though everything was an extra 20% off, it's still all priced very high. They also didn't have the items that I was really looking for, such as Pushing Daisies season 2 or Sex and the City season 3, which was actually a good thing. And after looking through their vast collection of movies and cds, I realized that there really wasn't anything I had to have. Plus, I'm hoping that if I wait a little bit longer, the percentage off will raise to 40, perhaps even 50% off!

But when I came across Sliding Doors, priced at "A New Low Price!" of $5.00, I thought, "Why not?" For anyone not familiar, the movie is about one woman's life and the different path it could go on if she had missed the sliding doors of the tube (the underground transit system in London) or if she doesn't miss the doors. The movie splits into two parallel narratives, one where she did make the doors and got home to find her boyfriend in bed with someone else, and the other where she didn't make the doors and subsequently got mugged, went to hospital, and got home much later, thus missing the affair. Her life goes in two completely different paths based solely on her getting/not getting through the sliding doors.



Being a subway rider myself, and having missed the train by just mere seconds before, I'm always thinking that if I had just walked a little faster, or had not walked back into my room to grab something I had forgotten, that I would've made the train. And then it sets off a domino effect of what would've happened if I was on the train that I missed. Maybe I missed it for a reason. Maybe that train will be the last one before a big track delay. Maybe the train I missed had a friend on it, or a pickpocketer that would've gotten me. Maybe I'll now be late because I missed the train. Maybe now I'll miss some accident that happens. All because I missed the train.

And, wouldn't ya know it, the episode of How I Met Your Mother tonight was also about the little choices that cause you to go a certain way.

I can't get the video to embed, so here's the link so you can watch it.

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/video/video.php?cid=544192181&pid=K5zobE7kVfS_hNNRUsAPB5Os2bbL6RBL&play=true&cc=

After this, the whole episode recounts why Ted made the choices he did once he stepped outside--why he almost went right but then went left, why he stopped at the magazine rack, why he went down 77th and gave money to a homeless man--and how those small, seemingly insignificant choices, made it so he missed the light and therefore was there waiting when that chick tapped his shoulder. I love this show for many reasons, and one of them is Ted and I'm sort of like him.

So yes, I believe that the small choices we make, such as going right instead of left, or missing the train, will make some sort of effect on my life. Maybe not in a big, cataclysmic, life-changing way, but maybe...

By the way, I haven't watched How I Met Your Mother for a couple months; I felt like it wasn't quite as funny as it used to be. But tonight was classic HIMYM and I laughed out loud numerous times.