Before you read any further, know that there may be spoilers if you have not read the book or seen the movie. If you are planning on seeing it at sometime, be warned. It will rip out your heart and never give it back. It will tear asunder all hope. You will leave the movie a much more bleak, sardonic, and cynical person. (At this point, Maurice is rolling his eyes and mouthing “drama queen” at the computer screen. Remind me to smack you at a later date.)

Today I was driving to class and wanted to get there early so I would have extra time to study for our test. I pull my car out of the garage and the first thing I notice is the extremely dense cloud of fog surrounding me. My first thought is “Lord, don’t let anyone hit me.” So I’m driving along very carefully and fortunately, not many cars seem to be out. Suddenly, the thought strikes me: this scene feels familiar. Why am I getting a sense of deja vu? OMG, this looks like that scene from ‘The Mist’!

So like any rational human being, I take fantasy and inject it into reality in order to completely inundate myself in panic. As I keep driving, a few drops of water land on my windshield. My first thought is “Great, rain. As if it’s not hard enough to see……” followed closely by “…….wait. What if that’s not rain? What if it’s saliva dripping down from the 3000 foot tall monster that is looming over me?!”

By the time I get to class, I have completely convinced myself that the government was screwing around and ripped a hole in the universe and these monsters have come through and are wreaking havoc all over the earth. That’s why there’s a mist. That’s why so few people were out. WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! And I’m going to end up in a store with radioactive spiders and I’m going to meet some guy with a kid and the audience is going to think that we’re going to get together but he’s going to have to shoot me and the kid in the end, right before the military arrives to save the day.

Did I mention there would be spoilers?

Then I got out of class and the sky was blue and the sun was shining and all was right in my world again. There was no mist. There was no guy and no kid. And, best of all, there were no spiders.

*THAT* is how the movie *SHOULD* have ended. I might have retained some of my heart and soul. I might not have been so distraught I couldn’t even form a sentence. I might not have been repeatedly threatening to kill Stephen King. And Maurice would not be sitting behind his computer screen rolling his eyes right now.