I finally watched "Dan in Real Life" the other night, and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

I'm not sure why I thought I wouldn't, because I always do love me some Steve "The Office" Carell.

Strangely, however, I liked the movie precisely because Carell plays against type.

As a single dad trying to raise three daughters, he gives a human performance, and at the end of the movie he delivers one of the best lines ever.

Which I will share with you.

But FIRST I have to make mention of this true fact: People who live in Provo never give the University of Utah a second thought — except for the week that the Cougars and the Utes mix it up.

Then there are lots of second thoughts. There are just second thoughts all over the place, stretching as far as the eye can see.

But as soon as the game ends, that's it. Until the next game.

Imagine my surprise, then, when my husband and I moved to Salt Lake City, where we met plenty of people who think about BYU all year.

They think about how much they hate BYU. In fact, they define themselves by hating BYU. Hating BYU gives their lives meaning. They wear BYU-hating T-shirts and put bumper stickers on their cars that say "My favorite teams are the University of Utah and whoever is playing BYU."

I know. Amazing, isn't it?

Anyhoo. I think it's sort of funny. Not so one of my boys.

This boy became a photo negative of a BYU-hating Ute fan. He turned into a Utah-hating BYU fan. He proudly wore BYU colors to school and dished out even more crap than he took.

Tons, tons more. You have no idea.

Once when he was 9 years old and the two of us were walking home from Rice Stadium after BYU lost to Utah, my son took on a crowd of frat boys celebrating in front of the Sigma Chi house. He called them names and flipped them off. With both hands. At the same time. Predictably the frat boys went wild.

"Dude. If you don't put those fingers away," I hissed at my young son, "I'm going to break them."

Yes! That's me! Mother of the Year!

So you see how it was. To paraphrase Humphrey Bogart, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, the last place I expected this son to end up was at the University of Utah. Which he did.

The other day as he left for school I asked him if he had a problem with going to a school where people wear red and feel just fine about it. He said no. He didn't have a problem with it at all.

Which brings me to the final line of "Dan in Real Life."

Dan says, "In life you make plans for your kids. You make plans for yourself. ...

"But the only thing you can truly plan for is to be surprised."

No kidding.

NEXT WEEK: He said! She said!

e-mail: acannon@desnews.com