Story of the Day 12/25/2009

Part 1

My son is a working stiff.

He works at a local movie theater that is about 15 minutes away from our home.
It is perfect for a variety of reasons.
He has a friend who works there- who has worked there for a while. A very nice guy named Adam.
It is always nice to have a friendly face at work.
The pay is decent for a high school student. Not if you have to support a family and not if you have to pay rent, but for a guy who needs some spending money for the good things in life, like graphic novels and posters, it is perfect.

And there are freebies.

He can go see movies for free. He can take a few friends in with him for free.
He can eat popcorn and drink pop, when he is at work, for free.
And he can even have his immediate family come and watch a movies while he is working, for free.

Okay, there are also some not so perfect things about these freebies.

First of all, shortly after starting the job he found out why it is not good to drink that much soda pop in one day.
Wired. Very , very wired, and peeing . And, oh the stomach ache from the caramel corn!
And, the movies at this theater are not captioned- which means that , they may be free, but he has no idea what he is watching. Except that the visual effect are either good or bad.
And his family can come and watch a movie for free, while he is working.

That, is obviously the worst thing.

Oh, not so bad that his two cute sisters came, but his mother…who gushed at how cute he was standing behind the concession stand counter- and had to take a couple of photos of him.
“Aaron, look at me! Smile! Aaron, smile!”

The poor guy is still trying to recover.


Part 2

So, we arrived a little early.
My son told us that we had to sign in to get in to see the movie for free.
Of course, this was not just Indianapolis, this was a movie theater in a not so popular location (hey, it is near my house, this isn’t a put down, it is a reality) and it was Christmas Day.
So, with no wait, we came in, the paper was given to us to fill out (names, related to…) and we were given our tickets. We got to skip the entire waiting in line thing.

In other words, we got to go ahead of the other two people.

We had come to see a new release. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
I had never seen any of the trailers or heard the hype, but I was vaguely familiar with the story. I had read it somewhere in the Dark Ages of man. I mean, late high school or possibly my first semester of college. Since I have grey hair and my children will tell you that I cackle, that qualifies as the Dark Ages. Oh, yeah, only the Hearing one will tell you that I cackle.

There were more people in the theater that I expected. Of course, it was one of their larger theaters. They must have been expected a crowd. And it was a new film.

There were a good seven of us. Sarah counted.

We found a nice empty row. There were a couple of teen girls about 2 rows in front of us, but no one else near enough to obstruct our view.
Esther went and got a cup of water from Aaron, and, Sarah picked the seat in the middle.
Every now and then, I would do my motherly thing and sign something to let Sarah know what was going on.
Remember, this theater doesn’t show captioned films.
And, each time, she would tell me to stop it, because Esther had signed it to her.
The theater was pretty dark (that is kind of the idea), but I gradually realized that Esther was sitting on the other side of Sarah signing the entire movie to her.

What in the hell had happened?

This is the girl who wouldn’t even sign hello or the time of day to Sarah, just couple of years ago.
My God! She has stopped being a teenager and become nice.
I would have fainted and slid down to the floor, but the fear of what was stuck on the theater floor managed to keep me upright and even semi-conscious.

It was a good movie.
I am teased, sometimes, by my family, because I have a tendency to cry at films. And I did get a little teary at two points. I was slightly nervous that one of my girls would tease me about it, so, at the end, when Esther asked me if I had cried, I hesitantly admitted to my two small displays.

Instead of teasing me, Esther told me that Sarah had cried FIVE times. Sarah watched this discussion, and then broke in, “No, ten, I cried 10 times.”
This is my daughter Sarah, the same Sarah who NEVER cries at a movie.

I was very well behaved and didn’t tease her.

Of course, I still managed to not be quite socially acceptable. Apparently, I was supposed to figure out who the starring actor was. But I had no idea, so, at the end of the movie, Esther, disappointed in my lack of cultural knowledge, let me in on that secret.
How am I supposed to recognize the guy? He never starred in any Star Trek episodes.