My boss, Sandy, likes to call me the purveyor of bad stuff. She christened me with this title shortly before Christmas when I ran into her over lunch at the mall. I was gushing about my freshly purchased ‘Fargo Rock City’ book and saying how I might just have to propose to Chuck Klosterman. She flipped through the book and got to the author picture of the doofy Klosterman and the part where it said he once ate chicken mcnuggets for an entire week. Yeah, what’s not to love?

“Jodi, you crack me up,” she said.
“Why?”

“You’re like the purveyor of bad stuff.”
“Should I be offended? I think I might be offended.”
“No! That’s not what I meant.”
“You didn’t mean I was the purveyor of bad stuff?”
“Well, I meant that you take the unlovable and love it. It’s cool.”

Her conclusion of loving the unlovable came after spending a week discussing my love of retard-movies. Yeah, it’s not politically correct at all. So we’ve changed it to mentally-challenged-character-movies.

The latest is “I am Sam.” I’ve been talking about this movie since I saw the preview way back in like October before seeing ‘Life is a House.’ When it finally came out last week my co-workers were disappointed that I hadn’t already seen it.

“I thought for sure you’d be there Friday night with popcorn in hand.”

Hardee-har-har. They tease me, but c’mon. . . Sean Penn playing a special needs person, what’s not to love??

One day at work I was waxing philosophic about how excited I was to see the movie, for two reasons. 1.) any movie with a soundtrack that includes a Paul Westerberg song cannot be all bad and 2.) well, it features the mentally handicapped.

PromoJoe, another co-worker, asked me if I liked “The Other Sister.”

“I love that movie! It’s so cute. Olive Juice and Giovanni’s love for the marching bands. It’s true cinematic genius.”
“How about ‘Rainman’?”
“He’s not really mentally challenged, but I still love it! C’mon K’mart sucks? Has more brilliant dialog ever been uttered?”
“Gilbert Grape?”
“Yes! Leo’s whole finger-thing,” I said, moving my fingers ala Gilbert Grape. “He was nominated for an Oscar for that role.”
“You’re just plain weird, Jodi.”
“Oh, and when I was a little kid there was a mini-series called ‘Bill’ with Mickey Rooney. He played a mentall challenged man.”
“My name is William, Bill for short,” Joe said, quoting the movie.
“Aha! You liked it too.”
“That’s all I can remember.”
“Liar!”

Yesterday I hustled on down to the Apple Valley Cinema to take a gander at ‘I Am Sam.’ It’s a renter. I’m not sure what it is about movies with mentally-challenged people that I love so much. Maybe it’s the naivete of the characters, adults being all childlike and stuff. Maybe it’s because they are so funny. Perhaps it’s that the main mentally-challenged characters get to say exactly what’s on their minds and tell the truth without facing repercussions.

I like that they make things uncomfortable, even when the movie is predictable and I see it coming a mile away. Maybe I watched too much ‘Life goes on’ as a kid.

Mostly I just like to see the underdog win. We underdogs have to stick together.