Showdown at the Cinema

Like a TARDIS but full of movies

I still haven’t seen the new Harry Potter movie, and if box office receipts are to be believed apparently I’m the only one.  I’m not one of those anti-theater people.  It’s just that it’s hard to find time to go to the movies, with someone else, who wants to see the same movie I do.  Even if all of those criteria are met there’s still a good chance our schedules won’t match up and I’ll have to Red Box or buy the damn movie.

Two dudes about to get BUSTED!

As a kid I went to the movies all the time and I’d hop from theater to theater till I got bored or kicked out.  The trick to theater hopping was to flash your ticket stub and project confidence.  If you go sneaking around like some kind of ninja you’ll get caught for sure.  The other trick to theater hopping is to not get caught filling up your squirt gun at the water fountain.  They kind of frown on that sort of thing.  

To fuel these theater-hopping-shenanigans we would stop at the gas station on the way to the show and buy some gobstoppers, peach rings, or what have you and an ice cold pop.  It was a few hours of fun for only $6. As I got older I started bringing beer to the movies.  The trick with that is to only bring two beers anymore than that and you’ll be peeing the whole time, and I don’t go to the bathroom when I’m seeing a movie I just paid hard earned money to see.

It’s usually not a big deal sneaking pop or beer into the movie.  They never check for that sort of thing and even if you get caught they just confiscate your beer.  Still, you want to be discreet.  What if everyone started sneaking in beer?  In a word: anarchy.  In two words: crazy anarchy.  When I was younger I always pretended to sneeze when I’d open my pop to cover the noise.  This almost led to disaster on one occasion when my pop can had become shaken in my pants pocket from walking around.  So when I opened my Mountain Dew it sprayed the back of the biggest black dude in the world.

No caption necessary

Apparently he thought that the spray from my tasty beverage was a wave of snot.  He said, “if you sneeze on me again I’m gonna kick your ass.”  So I reacted like any suburban white teenager; I apologized profusely and changed seats.  Crisis averted.  Race relations improved.  I guess that’s why they call me “a Dan for all seasons.”

All thanks to me

Note:  I guess I should tag this post “beer” but it seems kind of redundant seeing as how most of my stories involve drinking beer, and I write all blog posts while drinking a beer naked.