Three Little Words: You've Got Mail

While my love for books is immense, there is also something to be said about the odd movie or two – especially if the movie involves books.  Just like the perfect book, the perfect movie can take a place in your heart and influence your life without ever looking back.

For me, this movie is You’ve Got Mail.  I can’t even count how many times I have cuddled up in my blanket to watch this heartwarming tale.

You’ve Got Mail has influence me in innumerable ways:

• “Don’t you think daisies are the friendliest flower?”  Daisies are my favorite flower, and I have no idea where that love began.  Did Kathleen Kelly actually make this decision for me?
• “I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You've got mail.”  AOL.  Does it get any better?  My husband often teases me for still using AOL, but how can you get rid of an email address that’s been a part of your life since the 7^th grade?  We’ve had quite the relationship together, and I can’t just abandon it now.  And does my husband’s email actually tell him, “You’ve got mail,” in an oh-so-familiar voice?  I don’t think so. 
• “The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.”  If I had money coming out of my ears and could afford a five dollar coffee every day, I have no doubt that I would.  One grande decaff vanilla latte, please.
•  And the most wonderful line of the film – “Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.”  Oh, how I love fall.  I have even been known to send a bouquet or two of pencils.  Newly sharpened, of course. 

I am not the only one who loves this movie; my dad and I spent many evenings watching it while I was growing up.  Being in the same family, we have a very similar sense of humor.

             “A hotdog is singing. You need quiet while a hotdog is singing?”

“And we got a fifty-thousand dollar ticket for construction workers peeing off the roof.”

Classic.  I’m still smiling just thinking about those lines.

Any movie can be your favorite, and it most certainly does not have to be You’ve Got Mail.  But take some time to watch it every once in a while.  Curl up on your couch, eat some popcorn with extra butter, and remember all the times that movie has changed your life for the better.