Category: Funny Business

Recently I wrote about “day dating” and mentioned that one of the perks is going to movies in the mornings or afternoons.

For the most part, you’ll either have the theater to yourselves or be among just a smattering of people who want plenty of elbow room.

However, our last trip to the local Cineplex made me think that perhaps my days of watching movies on the big screen could be coming to a close.

Why?

Assigned seating.

Yep, I had no idea this was a thing (and it wasn’t a thing when we saw “Avengers: Endgame” in April or “Rocketman” last month), but it is now.

We headed to the 9:30 a.m. showing of “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” paid our money, and then were asked to choose our seats.

The ticket-seller pointed to a seating chart that was attached to the glass partition by the transaction window.

“The open seats are in blue,” she said. “Just select whichever two you like.”

Even though I’m eligible for a discount at Denny’s and continually get mail from those killjoys at AARP who want me to feel old, I like to think of myself as young at heart and technologically savvy.

So I decided to press seats 1 and 2 on row O, which is the last row of the theater.

We like the last row because you’re up high and can plop your head back on the wall. You can also see the rest of the movie goers, so it’s easier to mock them.

Anyway, I kept pressing and nothing happened and was finally informed that it was merely a sheet of paper taped to the glass. Me pressing did nothing but provide some pretty prominent fingerprints.

This might’ve embarrassed someone else, but not me. I just told her I was kidding … I knew it was merely paper taped to glass.*

* I wasn’t kidding. I kept waiting for the damn numbers to light up.

Turns out I had to verbally announce my seat selection, so in this game of theater bingo I made my pick and was handed my tickets.

In this instance, it was no big deal.

I think we counted five people in the theater other than us, so even if we’d been seated next to someone who smelled of cigarettes, pickles, Bud Light and damp ass, we could’ve moved to several other desirable locales.

But here’s my worry: Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” premieres on June 25, 2021. That’s a Friday, meaning there will be Thursday night preview showings on June 24.

Obviously I’ll be at one of those (probably the midnight showing) and because he’s Batman, I expect all early screenings to sell out.

So … as soon as tickets go on sale (and they haven’t yet – I checked) I’m going to have to select my back row seats well in advance with no clue who I’ll be sitting next to.

And that’s gonna suck.

For one thing, the back row is the “Flatulence Zone.” I’m admitting nothing here other than to say gas events often take place there.

So if cigarettes, pickles, Bud Light and damp ass guy sits next to me – and recently ate a deviled egg – there’s gonna be a situation.

And even though there are numbers on the tickets you know as well as I do there’ll be some jackass who’ll sit in your seat.

You’ll then have to tell the person they’re in your seat, and things are bound to get uncomfortable.

If it’s a tiny old man – no more than 5-1, 130 and preferably suffering from asthma – I could probably just pick him up and put him in the aisle.

But what if it’s a big kid who could beat me up?

That means I have the option of telling an usher someone is in my seat (and still probably getting beat up) or taking someone else’s seat and continuing the cycle of chaos and potential bloodshed.

Nope, I don’t like this new system at all. Obviously the people who run theaters think it’s a good idea but it just seems to me like it’ll cause more problems than it’s worth.

Regardless, I’m already getting emotionally prepared for June 24, 2021, and dreading who my viewing companions might be.

I do plan on eating plenty of garlic before I go, though.

If I have to deal with cigarettes, pickles, Bud Light and damp ass guy, I want to be able to fight back.

Hear the term “date night” and you might think of couples – probably with children – finally stealing away some time to enjoy an evening on the town.

Perhaps it involves dressing up, having dinner at a fine restaurant, seeing a play like “Hamilton, or going to a movie (there was an actual movie called “Date Night” released in 2010, so you could’ve spent date night watching “Date Night”).

It might even include romance, although you probably want to dial that down a bit – especially if you’re still at Denny’s when the mood strikes.

(Speaking of which, I enjoy role playing games. Sometimes I dress as an agent selling car insurance and Mary pretends to be a customer with a $500 deductible. One time she wore a Geico Gecko costume, but things got weird and I’m not comfortable talking about it).

Anyway, Mary and I do not have traditional date nights. Instead, we have date days.

Sometimes we even have date mornings.

Basically, it consists of brunch and a movie, or a movie and lunch. Either way, it’s extremely casual and fits in much better with our be-in-the-house-before-dark lifestyle.

Now, the main reason we like to go to morning/early afternoon movies is because there are far less people in the theater. It’s not that we don’t like people … it’s really more that we don’t like being around people.

And before you think we’re antisocial we really aren’t – some of our best friends are members of the human race. But neither of us like crowds, especially when you’re packed in tight at the ol’ multiplex.

If we go to the cinema in the morning, we can find a nice spot where we don’t have people near us.

Go at night, and you might wind up with a teenage boy soaked in Axe Body Spray on one side of you and an old woman who smells of mothballs and has an annoying nose whistle on the other.

The only time we do go to a movie at night is if said movie involves Batman. I’m a Grand Gordon in the Dark Knight Temple, so premiere evenings count as holy days of obligation.

As for dressing up on our dates, we don’t do that.

I mean we wear clothes – obviously – just not particularly good ones.

Mary has an impressive rotation of T-shirts. One celebrates the band “Folk Uke” and features a unicorn barfing a rainbow; one has a cat with horns; and another says “Think While It’s Still Legal.”

My shirts are generally of the sportsball or comic book variety and I try to always dress for the occasion.

If we’re at a Marvel movie, I’ll usually wear my Avengers or Captain America tee.

When at a DC film, I always sport a Caped Crusader or Superman shirt.

And you’ll never catch me wearing a DC shirt to a Marvel film or vice versa. That’s a slap in the face to nerds and nerdkind.

The mere thought of someone walking into “Avengers: Endgame” while wearing a “Shazam” tank top makes my blood boil.

As for dining out, we don’t do fancy … never have and probably never will.

Our rotation involves a Mexican restaurant, a hipster-type joint that serves everything from black bean burgers to hummus, and a veggie-style diner.

That’s basically it – rarely do we venture beyond our grub trilogy.

We don’t go to high end places that serve things like wildebeest soufflé and warthog kabobs and feature a member of the wait staff bringing over a bottle of wine and asking me to sniff a cork.

Frankly, I’ve always felt that cork sniffing should be done behind closed doors (but under close supervision).

And plays and concerts just don’t do it for us anymore, mainly because of that whole people issue.

I mentioned “Hamilton” earlier and I have no doubt it’s extraordinarily entertaining, but unless Lin-Manuel Miranda and Phillipa Soo are willing to do a private performance for us – preferably before lunch and in our backyard – we’re probably going to wait until it’s made into a movie and comes to Netflix.

I realize our version of “date night” might not sound very exciting to a lot of people, but it works out just fine for us.

And really, as nice as an early movie and burrito might be, there’s nothing we like more than simply piling up on the futon at home with our two dogs and two cats and binging on “Stranger Things.”

Thing is, if you’re lucky enough to find the person you want to be with, every night can be date night – even if it’s morning.

According to dictionaries, Wikipedia, other tionaries and alternate pedias, a repressed memory is, “… a condition where a memory has been unconsciously blocked by an individual due to the high level of stress or trauma contained in that memory. Even though the individual cannot recall the memory, it may still be affecting them consciously.”

If that’s the case, that’s not what I have because the memory I’m about to share is one I do remember, but wish I could repress.

You see, the first album I ever purchased with my own money was “Close To You” by the Carpenters.

Five decades later, I still have no clue why on earth I would lose my LP virginity to Karen and Richard Carpenter and an album named after a song that – when I hear it – makes me want to take hostages and then barf on those hostages.

The album was released in August, 1970, so assuming I bought it when it first came out, I was 9 years old. And, we can also assume that since I bought it, I must’ve also listened to it.

I distinctly remember walking into the W.T. Grant store at Roebuck Shopping City in Birmingham, Alabama, selecting the album, paying for the album, and exiting the premises with the album.

Things get a little fuzzy from there.

Now, the age factor can be a legitimate excuse for my actions given that 9-year-olds aren’t necessarily known for their decision-making skills. It’s why you don’t see kids that young operating heavy machinery or removing gallbladders.

But, I was already into music by then, and none of that music was anything like what the Carpenters put out.

When my brother went off to college he left behind albums by the likes of Jim Hendrix (I absolutely wore out “Are You Experienced”), the Animals (I used to sing “House of the Rising Sun” to my dog, Ringo), and the Monks (kind of a 1960s version of punk).

I was rock and roll through and through at a very young age.

That being the case, it would stand to reason that in 1970 I would spend my hard-earned allowance on something cool like, say, “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs” by Derek and the Dominos or “Led Zeppelin III.”

Nope.

It was “Close to You” – an album so syrupy you couldn’t listen to it without a short stack and pat of butter.

I’ve wracked my brain trying to figure out what possessed me to buy it.

I guess it could’ve been to impress a girl, but the only girl I wanted to impress at the time was Yvonne Craig, who played Batgirl on TV. Ours was a May-December romance that I still don’t like to talk about because it was unrequited.

I will, however, talk about it long enough to say she could buy her own albums due to the sweet “Batman” residuals she raked in.

Could it be that maybe there was a song on the album that, for whatever reason, I liked?

No … it could not be that.

At all.

Karen Carpenter had a wonderful voice, Richard Carpenter was a great composer, and they were brilliant at their craft. But their kind of music was not “my” kind of music.

No, this will likely remain a mystery for the rest of my days – one that can’t be solved or resolved.

Over the years I’ve spent a lot of money on music yet – except for that one time – I stayed true to my roots.

I bought all the early KISS stuff and was even a member of the KISS Army (I never saw any action, though, because I was stationed stateside).

As time went on I stocked up on albums and 45s by the Ramones, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, the Clash and the New York Dolls – just about every band you can think of that didn’t sound anything remotely like the Carpenters.

But I’ll have to live with the fact that – as I lay on my death-bed, surrounded by morbid people who want to see me die – one of my last thoughts as I take the Big Sleep will be that my first music money was spent on “Close To You.”

I’ll probably be given a posthumous dishonorable discharge from the KISS Army.

And I’ll deserve it.