In the almost two decades that my best friend Lindsay and I have been acquainted, we don’t always get to talk much. We haven’t lived in the same place in some time, so we have to get by on phone calls and texting to keep in touch. However, we rarely seem to text about what is going on in our lives. Instead, we text each other random song lyrics or lines from movies, typically designed to make the other one laugh.

Yesterday, I pulled out an old inside joke from our middle school days about “The Chipmunk Adventure”, the 1980s animated movie about Alvin and the Chipmunks as well as the Chipettes, their female counterparts.  Lindsay responded that she tried to explain this classic of our childhood to her European acquaintance and it didn’t go over well.  What follows is us trying to summarize the plot of this film. Be warned, this won’t be amusing unless you are familiar with the film:

Me: “How do you even begin? So there are these prepubescent chipmunks living with a man. And they sing…”

Lynz: “And they have female counterparts who sing about getting lucky…to snakes.”

Me: “And they are left unsupervised and decide to hot air ballooon around the world. It seems innocent enough, but turns out they are inadvertently smuggling diamonds.”

Lynz: “For Russians…”

Me: “Using dolls that look like tiny versions of themselves…”

Lynz: “There’s a really touching scene about the bond between mother and child…”

Me: “Involving penguins.”

Lynz: “Who wear lockets.”

Me: “And the chipmunks singing this song don’t really have a mom, so presumably they’re singing about…Mrs Miller?”

Lynz: “She’s the babysitter…for the prepubescent chipmunks.”

Me: “Who clearly could be doing a better job, as she is blissfully unaware the six of them are romping around the world unsupervised.”

Lynz: “To be fair, the chipmunks did pull off some Ferris Bueller-esque tricks to cover their tracks.”

Me: “Here is a question…do you just not need passports when traveling the world via balloon? Or are there deleted scenes somewhere of them outsmarting customs?”

Lynz: “Wouldn’t some sort of aviation authority have shot them out of the sky?”

Me: “They’d have to have some sort of license at the least. Maybe Claus and Claudia took care of that though?”

Lynz: “Their selection criteria was that the munks could play a hot air balloon video game. Not even a simulator. A game. I don’t think they had their shit together enough to get licenses.”

Me: “I am laughing so hard there are tears. I forgot about the arcade game plot point.”

Lynz: “‘We need an astronaut. Let’s get that kid from Showbiz Pizza who’s kinda good at Galaga.’ What kind of logic is that?”

Me: “But remember they thought no one would find innocent, young, singing chipmunks flying around in hot air balloons suspicious. They were so far above reproach that one tribe veen thought Theodore was a god.”

On the bright side, while searching YouTube for the trailer, I discovered we aren’t the only adults preoccupied with this film.  These guys went so far as to reenact it: