I’m one of those annoying people who always says the book was better than the movie, but sometimes I cheat and watch the movie if I want to get cultured without reading the book. That way I can at least talk about it if it comes up and pretend like I know something.

Otherwise it goes to the back of my reading list, which is a lot like the back of my refrigerator right now. Not sure what’s back there at this point or if it’s any good. I don’t have a theater list.

So I was talking to my wife about how Shakespeare had some good dirty jokes back in the day but got away with it because he spoke posh. And we decided to watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which she saw in a theater and I didn’t.

The one with the currently famous actors.

I wanted to watch the actual play, so I don’t make a fool out of myself by talking about how people in Romeo and Juliet’s day called their guns swords. Then I realize it’s set in the 1800s and I start getting paranoid they were gonna go all Baz Luhrmann on us and make me lose English major cred.

But they were talking Elizabethan English so I figured it was OK.

Poor young lovers getting jerked around by those meddling fairies. It reminded me of when I used to play Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with the dog when I was a kid. It really freaked him out.

So anyway, I think I did a culture, but they have that wacky play at the end with Kevin Kline’s character. Was that stuff in the play or did they Hollywood it up? Made me suspicious. It was too entertaining.

I’m the one who wanted to watch Shakespeare for the jokes. Was he really that funny?

Now I’m gonna have to read the play dammit.