Monster-in-Law (10July05)

We once again missed our Tuesday night moving outing, since we were at my parents' cottage for the holiday, basking in the sun. So we decided to make up for our absence by catching a Sunday-night show instead.

Since Sunday is both a work night and a full-price night at The Cheap Theater (a whole $1.50 per ticket!), the place wasn't full at all. In fact, it took us less than ten minutes to get from our parking spot to the theater -- I consider that pretty impressive. At the same time, however, only one movie was added to the theater's roster this weekend (and not a very popular one at that), so our strategy of picking a week-old movie didn't exactly work this time. In fact, everyone in the ticket line had chosen the same movie we had.

"Two for Monster-in-Law," I heard as we stood in line.

"One for Monster-in-Law."

"Two for Monster-in-Law."

I could only imagine where (and with whom) we'd end up sitting if we didn't hurry.

And that, of course, was the time when Paul decided that he needed to go to the bathroom. He handed me the tickets and sauntered off to the men's room. As I stood there waiting, I anxiously watched the people in the lobby. There were large packs of men standing there, waiting for their female counterparts to return from powdering their noses. All of them, I assumed, were headed for Monster-in-Law. And if Paul didn't move fast, they'd take our seats. We'd end up in the front row, off to the side, next to a kid who would scream and throw food -- and behind a guy who would repeatedly kick my seat, a woman who would ask questions about the finer points of the plot, and a teenager who would cough without covering his mouth. I'd end up with soda-drenched pants, nursing a deadly cold in the local mental institution -- all because Paul forgot to go before he left home...

When he came out of the men's room, I rushed to the line for the ticket-taker, who told the five people ahead of us in line, "Second one on the right." By the time he took our tickets, he gave up on directing us and just assumed that we'd follow everyone else.

And we did.

When we walked into the second one on the right, I was amazed to find that it wasn't packed. We didn't even end up in the front row. In fact, we noticed that the entire back row was empty, so we took the center seats.

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "I don't think I've sat in the back row since I was in high school!" But it was wonderful -- and I suddenly remembered why we always used to sit back there. No one behind me to kick or throw stuff. And if I wanted, I could thrown my arms up in the air and wave them around in the middle of the movie, and no one would complain. And though they had the minimal padding of highly popular seats, they also came with an added bonus -- tons of extra leg room. So I was thrilled.

As I looked around, studying the Sunday night crowd, I began to hypothesize that perhaps those who were willing to pay a little more for their tickets (three times the Tuesday night price, in fact) were a little more...refined. There were no small children, and the crowd seemed to be rather relaxed and under control. That was, of course, until the three young girls showed up and took seats a couple of rows ahead of us. One of them had brought a digital camera (not even a camera phone -- I checked). And -- for some reason well beyond our comprehension -- she had decided to take pictures in the dark theater, in the middle of the previews. Since we'd already gotten accustomed to the darkness, the flash was blinding. I started looking around for something to throw.

And that, unfortunately, wasn't the worst of it.

As the movie started, some very large women arrived. Very large. And very loud. And they decided to take the two seats between me and the aisle. Of course. I was trying to ignore them -- and pay attention to the movie -- though it wasn't easy. One of them -- who struggled to make her way to the seat next to me, kept yelling out, "I can't see! I can't see where I'm going!" Apparently, it hadn't occurred to her that when a theater lists the show times for its movies, it means that if you show up past that time, it will be dark, and the movie will most likely have already started. It doesn't mean, "We'd like to start at around 7:15, but show up when you want -- we'll wait for you."

As I continued in my attempt to watch the movie, quietly praying that J-Lo wouldn't ruin it, I added a prayer that the gigantic-loud-and-temporarily-blind lady wouldn't choose to plunk her muumuu-covered rear in my lap.

Eventually, she took her seat, but there was one more problem. There were three loud fat women and only two seats. Apparently, none of them could see far enough to notice that there were people already seated and trying to watch the movie -- because if they had been able to see, I'm sure they would have chosen three of the other (numerous) seats available throughout the theater.

Then again, probably not.

"Excuse me," one of them called out, causing the entire theater to turn around and scowl. "Could you move down so we can all sit together?"

Personally, if I had three people who all wanted to sit together, I would have thought of that before trying to fit all of us into two seats. But that's just me. And since I was in no mood to put up with a fight while I was already missing the movie (and, let's face it, I'm a pansy), we got up and moved.

I wish we could have moved farther down the row, away from our loud and inconsiderate neighbors, but there was another woman (who had made a point of showing up on time) who had already taken her seat in our row, and I wasn't about to inconvenience her and ask her to move.

But that's just me.