If you didn't know this about me, I will tell you now--I love going to the movies. I love shutting off my brain to the outside world and immerse myself into another place and time. I'll even go alone--many times I have and will continue to--the anonymity of the darkened screening room, the maximum amount of snackage I can carry without the guilt from someone else's judgmentally widened eyes, the escape from the redundancy that is my life...ah, movie bliss. I don't see everything, mind you! Movies that are rated R or higher will not play for me, and some PG-13 movies aren't going to be viewed in the theater by me either (only if cleaned up for television viewing, maybe.) I also don't watch drippy tear-jerkers or sport-themed movies, unless they are raved over by the majority. What gets me to the theater? Action and/or historical movies will have me there on opening weekend (remember, also based on the rating and parental guides, although my parents will see just about anything.) I love sitting in the front with the bar so I can lean back and put my feet up. I get me a big popcorn with butter and a large diet soda (I know, I know...the one doesn't cancel out the other.) I also go to a theater based on how they serve the popcorn. One theater where I live will hand over the large popcorn and point me to the butter dispenser so the top five kernels get soaked while the remainder sit unscathed beneath. The other theater, however, will fill the bag halfway, butter, then fill the rest, and butter again. I'm so there. They also serve Pepsi products, which also call my name. Every now and then I'll get a bag of peanut M&Ms or Junior Mints to add the sweet with the salty and really spoil myself. To keep my habit alive I will use my American Express rewards to buy discount tickets at Costco so I get an extra $25 for every $100 I buy. Hey...I don't drink, I don't gamble, I don't spend money on my cars (except for maintenance,) and I don't shop till I drop. So there, I've justified the indulgence.
Now, as serious as I get about this, I have to make sure I get my seat. In some ways I'm like Sheldon on Big Bang Theory when it comes to the movies. He has to sit in a certain place, have a certain type of snack, and watch a certain type of movie. Ditto~! Anyway...
It's opening weekend for the highly anticipated Guardians of the Galaxy. What a beautiful combo of action, fantasy, and comedy! I always try to arrive at the theater thirty minutes before start time so I get all my little duckies in a perfect little row. On this occasion, I had to take my son to his friend's house, which meant leaving my husband at the theater to secure my spot while I ran to the friend's house, and then back. Whew! Hey, so worth it. My husband, well-trained I might add, knows where to go and what to do. Since he doesn't want any snackage, I send him in first so I can get my goodies closer to start time. (Don't you hate it when you're popcorn is over halfway gone and the movie trailers are barely over?)
I made great time, like you questioned that, and I went to screening room before the snack line so I could check in with my husband and set my purse down. I walk in, the room is lowly lit, and I see him with his baseball hat on, head down, his leg is up on the bar (bam!) and he is playing on his phone. There are a few patrons scattered around the theater, but we were still fifteen minutes from go time, and opening weekend will fill up. I spotted my husband and went up to the bar in front of him and playfully smacked the bill on his cap. Instead of going up the stairs to the row and walking to my seat, I climbed in between the bars. For some reason my husband always lets me squirm and awkwardly climb when I am trying to get to a seat, so this time I reached in front of me through the bars and grabbed onto his legs then arms, pulling myself up as I crawled through the narrow space. I finally plopped down beside him and looked over at him. Only, it wasn't him.
Just inches from my face is a stranger. His eyes are bugged out, his mouth is slightly open in dumbfoundedness (I just made that word up, but it works, right?), and he is perfectly still as though waiting for the next assault.
"You are not my husband," I say to him, but more to myself because at this point I'm having an out-of-body experience. I realize too that I am the show, I am the pre-show entertainment for all those behind us trying not to slam their popcorn before the movie starts. I look around with exasperation, wondering if I had gone to the right cinema, the right screen, the right planet? I look to my right and there's my man, doo doo dee, not having looked up for a second to see my mishap, head is down with his ballcap, one foot up on the bar, and playing with his phone. I alerted the poor doppelganger fool beside me, "Look! See? That's my husband...you can see he looks just like you with your head down!" Like he's feeling any better. But to show him I'm not out of my mind I go the extra mile to convince him. I turned back to him and apologized, but then thanked him for letting me grab onto him to pull me through the bars. Of all the days I choose to be aggressive when I climb to my seat! I jump up and quickly shuffle the five seats over to my husband who is still oblivious to me. I plop down beside him, now with humiliation, not relief. I tell him what I did and he calls me a liar. I am not making this up! He finds it amusing, more than amusing. The even scarier thing for the poor man unawares was that he was alone, and even during the movie he was alone, which means he wasn't expecting anyone, so I probably really scared the holy rats out of him. I decided that I had already made a fool of myself and I was just going to embrace the discomfort of my being in the theater. I wasn't about to pass up my awesome seat to the awesome movie over my hasty idiocy. I jumped up, WALKED to the end of the row (away from the husband look alike) and went to the snack bar to continue with what I started. I actually considered buying the "wrong" guy a candy as a peace offering, or maybe it was a matter of guilt that I had shared a brief moment of my movie experience with him and he wasn't compensated for the wear and tear (I'm no ladybug on your finger when I pull myself through the bars, ahem.) *thinking about this more deeply*~ But spending my movie money on him will eliminate a future snack item for me...nah. Snapped out of it, over it already. Hollywood--take me away!
