Monday, February 13, 2006

There is This Movie We've Been Trying to See

And the short answer is yes, we finally got to see The Goblet of Fire, in IMAX no less. But then you miss out on all the fun if you don’t read any further.

As y’all know my husband and I have been having some difficulties in seeing the aforementioned movie, namely it kept getting sold out.

But this time would be different; I ordered the tickets four days ahead of time. All we had to do was show up.

Then a monstrous storm decided that we would be getting winter after all, with snowfall totals ranging from 2 to 5 starting sometime Saturday and tapering off on Sunday morning.

Joy.

The Richmond area does not handle snow well at all. For example our road does not get plowed until a day and a half after a snow event ends. Panic is usually the reaction and everything shuts down with just an inch of snowfall.

So even though I had solved the ticketing problem I now had two new hurdles: will the theater be open and will I be able to get there? I called the Science Museum and they claimed that it “was very doubtful” that they would be closed and Meryl generously offered the use of her Jeep.

So far so good.

Sunday dawned clear and bright with a soft wet blanket of snow on the ground. The day was warm, holding steady at about 40. As a result the roads were soon clear. Meryl came over to watch the kids and we were free to go. (Jake and Nate had already seen the Movie with their grandparents and we did not want to take Max and Rebecca.)

Whoo-Hoo! The movie was going to happen!

We headed up early with our ticket confirmation in hand.

Signs announcing that the movie was sold out greeted us as we went inside. I handed over my printout and in short order we had our tickets. We then winded our way downstairs to get in the huge line for the theater. At little bit before two we finally got inside the theater.

It was packed. In the end we had to settle for two seats in the third row, but we were in! Larry was to my left and two my right there were two boys, brothers are my guess. The rest of their family was in the row behind us.

And then we waited.

And waited.

The lights went down, the lights went back up. Several times

Both Larry and I had the same thought. The movie/projector is broken. We were not going to see the movie. Larry knew this was prime blog fodder.

All throughout the father behind us kept up a running monologue of every stray thought that popped into his head.

Oh no, we were trapped near a talker. Please stop, I don’t want to hear any more.

And then it happened. I heard what sounded like a loud sneeze and turned to look at the boys next to me. The father just commented “nice sneeze” when I noticed that it had been a bit more than a big sneeze. In fact, it was a lot more. The poor kid was huddled in his seat, staring down at his hands. He was not well and he had nailed himself and the seat in front of him. I told the father it was more than just a sneeze.

The father apologized to the poor people ahead of his son. The mother collected the kid and whisked him away. Meanwhile the gentleman in front (who was an incredibly good sport) took off his sweatshirt, mopped up his seat and calmly accepted the apology. I was stunned. I would not have blamed the kid, but I would not have handled it with as half as much grace. After a few minutes Larry and I edged over a seat to distance us from the mess. And then the lights went down for real and the film started.

It was wonderful.

I got completely lost in the magic of the film. It would have been even better if we had been a few rows up, but it was still good. And, as I had suspected and as Meryl had warned us, it would have scared the crap out of Max and Rebecca.

So in the end the third time really was the charm.

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