I had an epiphany this week.

It came, as I think most epiphanies do, while I was watching Fast & Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw.

I’m kind of in love with the double ampersand there.

I saw this movie in the theater when it was released in 2019. I had never seen a Fast & Furious movie. But Hobbs & Shaw is such cinematic art, my ignorance didn’t matter. I instantly understood the moving parts of the franchise that brought this story into being.

Try saying that about the Star Wars or Godfather franchises. I mean, do you get the significance of ghost Obi-Wan in Empire if you haven’t seen A New Hope? Do you even know who Michael Corleone is in The Godfather: Part III if you’ve never seen The Godfather?

No. So look at Hobbs & Shaw. Getting things done, am I right?

My crush on Jason Statham propelled me to see this film. He’s Shaw. Or Hobbs. Or – well, it doesn’t matter. One day, Jason Statham will realize the thing that’s missing in his life is a middle-aged mom with two teenagers, a geriatric dog, and a lovely husband. And he will come knocking on my reasonably mortgaged door.

Then we can talk about whether he’s Hobbs or Shaw.

I’m pretty sure he’s Shaw. Checking IMDB – yes. He’s Shaw.

As the plot unfolds, we learn Shaw’s sister is a James Bond-y agent tasked with securing a virus. But Idris Elba wants the virus for some very bad reasons. He kills a whole team of James Bonds.

Except for Shaw’s sister.

Who has no choice – no choice, I tell you! – but to inject the virus into her awesomely manicured hand. She’s under the gun to extract the virus before it infects her and, in turn, the planet.

If you’re keeping up, you’ll recognize not only this movie’s ability to facilitate life-changing realizations, it’s also Nostradamus-like in its prescience. I mean, hello? Nine months before the coronavirus shut down the world, Fast & Furious makes a movie about a virus that could shut down the world?!

So what was my brand of Hobbs & Shaw epiphany? The last time I saw this movie, coronavirus wasn’t a thing. Virtual school, pandemic pods, and vaccine cards didn’t exist.

And I realized how frustrated I am. To be a parent in covid times is ridiculous. This piece from The Philadelphia Inquirer brilliantly explains the mundane parenting decisions that now require General Patton-level strategizing.

As most parents do, I look back on previous parenting generations and scoff at how easy they had it. Was it really harder to raise me during the Cold War, as my parents did? Or to raise kids during World War II as my grandparents did? And do I really want to publish that sentence and have Jason Statham realize I’m so old my parents pre-date baby boomers?

The answers to those questions are probably, probably, and hell no.

Just so you know, Jason Statham, I do a lot of sit-ups. Like, all the time. We can make this work.

There have for sure been bizarre benefits to the pandemic. A majority of us feel more capable as parents now than in March 2020. I learned that from this piece in The Guardian.

I also learned a lot about Australia from this piece in The Guardian.

Other parents profiled in the article even declared themselves happy to hang with their teenagers. I spent two weeks in London – not looking for Jason Statham, I promise – with my teens even before the pandemic. Post-pandemic I’d do the same.

Although I wish one didn’t wait two weeks to tell me their deodorant was down to a nub, the deodorant case long gone. They just palmed the nub to apply it – because that’s easier than asking for a new stick of deodorant.

But for each day that rolls along as uneventfully as a day can roll along when omicron is threatening your home and Russia is threatening Ukraine, there are days when TikTok posts threaten the school and you think maybe it is time to just homeschool everybody on a farm you’ve fortressed out like Wayne Manor.

But please don’t talk to me about the new Batman movie. I can’t tell you how many ways that’s not going to happen for me. I mean, look at Hobbs & Shaw. Obviously, I have standards. And there are just three Batmans – Adam West, Christian Bale, and Michael Keaton.

In that order.

Also, has anyone thought about sending Hobbs & Shaw to assist Ukraine? I mean, they straightened out that virus situation pretty quickly.

They straightened out the virus. And they did it, Hobbs explains, because they have heart.

And just like that I was inspired. Inspired to keep my chin up. If Shaw’s sister can fight through a world-ending virus in her hand, I can fight through a world-stagnating virus in my sphere.

I have heart.

And there you have it. Hobbs & Shaw – bringing epiphanies, prophecies, and inspiration.

And Jason Statham.