This morning, while blow-drying my hair, I was watching a romance movie. Since I had the dryer on, I used the closed-caption for the hearing impaired. When the movie broke for commercial, I thought it was a preview for a movie. I could see a woman on the phone. The caption read, "I'm going to use the treadmill for bait." She got on the treadmill. The scene changed to show two burglars outside looking in. The next scene showed them breaking into her home. The alarm went off...and it turned out to be a Brinks Security commercial!

I thought, "someone is making fun of the Brinks' commercial!" Ha. Ha. But I couldn't believe it. I pressed reverse on my remote (I could do this because it was a DVR) but before it got to the part I read, it froze and broke into pixels and squares. I kept pressing Reverse, but nothing happened. Finally it went into fast reverse, and I was able to halt it before the caption.

This time, the caption had changed and read as it should, "I'm going to use the treadmill for a bit."

The placement of the letter "a" changed the entire meaning.

I wondered, "this was live, so it was possible I saw what I saw..."

I doubted, "maybe I transposed the letters, removed the 'a' and put it in front. It's not that live."

Then I got the idea. Remember Mel Gibson in CONSPIRACY THEORY? Remember Sandra Bullock in THE NET? Well, my idea is a combination of these two. What if a recluse with only access to the computer and the television receives messages through the closed-caption for the hearing impaired? The recluse must brave her fears, leave her home to save someone she doesn't know from being tortured and killed. As she confronts her fears, she learns that the person she must save is a parallel version of her self, and she gets to know herself as she would have been (and now is, because she has changed) without fear.

I would like to hear strange things that have happened to you, and what story you will (or would if you could) write.

(I won't take yours, just don't take mine!) 

Tags: ideas | story | romance | commercial | closed-caption for the hearing impa

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