A Free Date

Last year Andrew got some movie tickets for Carmike Cinemas for being a good employee. We decided to go out to the movies last night since the tickets expire on the 31st, Andrew's parents were available to babysit, and Andrew wanted to make up for giving me a lousy Christmas Eve.

As an axiom we only go to the dollar theater because we can't rationalize paying $8 or more for a movie ticket when we could just wait a couple of months and either see the movie for a buck each or borrow the DVD from our parents. But, because we had the movie tickets that were only valid at a Carmike place we decided to swallow the three dollars it would take to supplement the amount stated on the tickets.

The tickets were valued at $5.50 each and we had two of them. Admission is $8.50 so clearly we still owed $6.

Andrew told the ticket lady that we wanted 2 adult tickets for the 7:00 showing of National Treasure: Book of Secrets. He handed her the two coupons and his credit card to "pay for the rest."

She handed back his credit card and charged us just $11.00. I guess they are just free tickets, which is awesome because he got another two from work this year!

We haven't been to a movie since before Rachel was born and I was a little blown away at how incredibly loud the volume was when the sound came on. It took me quite a while to get used to it. We sat through all the "pre-feature content" and then there was this little Disney short.

That's when our trouble began.

The lady behind us started laughing at the splash screen of the flick. Not just a little snicker, either...it was a really annoying, high pitched snorting laugh.

We thought perhaps she just really liked Disney but then the movie actually started and in the very first scene she whisper-screamed,

"Ohhhh! Riley!" and continued with her annoying laugh.

It was then that we thought perhaps she'd seen the film before. And I'm pretty sure she had. She laughed about everything funny before it happened. Screamed about everything scary before it happened. Gasped at everything that needed gasping at before they happened.

It took every ounce of self control not to turn around and talk to her. We would have, had we been brave, but deep down inside we felt that she was trying to be obnoxious because all of her friends and other people sitting around us kept shushing her and it did no good.

At least we didn't have to pay to sit in front of her. And the movie was pretty good. They set it up for a third movie in a very obvious way. I don't like it when movies do that--like the second Pirates movie...dreadful. Movies should be self-contained and still lend themselves to have a sequel. That's where cleverness comes in. If we leave the theater knowing there has to be a sequel then there's no surprise.

The movie was only two hours long, but we were gone for 2 and half or 3 hours, which was plenty long for Rachel. She was screaming her little heart out when we got back to Andrew's parents house. Poor little girl wanted her mommy. I like it when she wants her mommy, although I'm sure it was dreadful for Andrew's family while Rachel was busy expressing her desires. When that girl gets an idea in her head there is no shaking it--I'll have to be careful as she gets older...