Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (17Jan06)

Finally -- back to our weekly routine! This week, we had a lot of great movies to choose from, and we spent quite a bit of time discussing our options -- which ones were in danger of leaving the theater before we'd get to see them, which ones we really wanted to see -- until we settled on Wallace & Gromit. They'd shown it on our Amsterdam-to-NYC flight last Tuesday, but the monitors were so far away from our seats that we didn't even attempt to watch. But now we had our chance.

I threw together a quick dinner -- salads and one of those frozen meal-in-a-bag things, which I prepared in the electric frying pan. And yes, there is a reason why I'm telling you this -- and I'll get to it eventually.

In general, our First Cheap Night of the New Year was pretty uneventful. We got a great parking spot because the lot was pretty empty -- both, I'm guessing, because it was still early and because the weather was cold and rainy (the perfect night to stay home). I'll admit that I was pretty oblivious to my surroundings, since I was too busy going on and on and on about my experience earlier in the day at Blue Jackets practice. I did, however, happen to notice that the booths are in place at the new pizza buffet. It's only a matter of time now until we can enjoy dinner and a movie for a mere $9...

We got our tickets without waiting in line, and we made our way through the lobby. Normally, the lobby is a pretty lively place, filled with excited moviegoers, making their way to and from their super-cheap movies. This week, though, it was nearly empty -- except for a few dazed, rough-looking old people, who looked like they'd traded in their cardboard boxes under the overpass for the shelter of the Cheap Theater lobby for the evening.

Our less-than-energetic ticket-ripper (whom I later spied casually chatting on a cell phone as we made our way out of the theater) gave us that this-is-such-a-waste-of-my-time look and nodded us in the right direction, and we made our way to one of the Big Theaters -- one with plenty of available back-and-center seats. I think we may have arrived a bit too early -- either that, or the theater really needs to change their pre-movie ads and trivia questions. Whatever the case, I got a little bored, and it made me start thinking...

Ever since we bought our house a year ago, I've started having strange, irrational bursts of terror that I'm going to return home to find that my house has burned down in my absence because I left the oven on. Or I left a candle burning. Something like that.

This time, it was the frying pan. It has a cord that plugs into the outlet on one end and the pan on the other. Often, I pull the cord out of the pan and bring the pan to the table, only to come back later and realize that I've left the cord plugged in and I've forgotten to turn the thing off. This happens most often, of course, when I'm rushing around -- as I tend to do when I have to have dinner made, eaten, and cleaned up in time for an early movie.

So as I sat in the theater, mindlessly filling in the blanks on the theater's three-month-old trivia questions, I started to wonder about the frying pan cord. Had I turned it off? Had I unplugged it? Was it, at that moment, singeing the counter and burning the junk mail and beginning what would turn into a massive fire that would spread through the entire neighborhood -- all because I was in a hurry to catch a 50-cent movie?

Needless to say, I barely even noticed the unruly children in the theater. I remember occasionally enjoying the movie, but I also remember attempting to visualize the moment when I unplugged the cord. I also imagined all sorts of scenarios, all of which resulted in us being left homeless. And I checked my watch a lot.

After the movie ended, we had to stop at the store to pick up some milk and orange juice. By that time, I figured, the damage was done. A few extra minutes wouldn't make much of a difference.

As we pulled into our neighborhood, I craned my neck to see our front porch light, still shining. Our house was still standing, and I had, incidentally, remembered to unplug the cord. Unfortunately, I didn't remember that I'd remembered. And, as a result, I may have to see Wallace & Gromit again.

On the bright side, Don was actually paying attention when he saw the movie. If you'd like to read a review, you can find his at NightsAndWeekends.com.