My husband loves to go to the movies. I do not. Once or twice a year, I throw him a bone and we go to a movie theater. Unfortunately for him this usually also requires that we go to dinner and spend the night at a fancy hotel. This is not because I am high maintenance, this is because I am a creature of habit. Since the year we were married we have been going to the Townsend Hotel for an overnight stay. We go to dinner and a movie, sleep in and eat like pigs. Truth be told, it is all about the bakery basket we get in the morning with breakfast. He could probably save a lot of money by heading straight to the bakery. All he would have to do it stuff his pockets full of pastries and I would follow him anywhere. We could skip the dinner and head straight for the movie as long as he fed me those pastries.Last Saturday was one of our nights out. And as part of that night we went to the dreaded movie theater. It’s not that I don’t like movies. I love movies. I just don’t like watching them with other people. This is mostly because I feel like I need to be polite and quiet while in a movie theater, which is difficult for me. I think this may secretly be the reason my husband likes to take me to the movies – to shut me up for two whole hours. He is someone who will not engage at all once the movie starts. If you try to talk to him he will look straight ahead and not respond with anything more than a nod or head shake. Occasionally I get a hand gesture as well.

The problem arises for me when I am being polite and quiet in the theater and other people are not. And this is pretty much every time we go to the movies. A few years ago I sat next to a woman who had a ten minute conversation on her cell phone right next to me about an hour into the movie. She glared at me for an additional ten minutes after I made it clear her behavior was not appropriate in a movie theater. We had left our toddler with my parents that evening and I spent the better part of my night sitting next to a grown woman who behaved worse than my two year old. I vowed to never go to the movies again. And then I remembered that damn bakery basket.

Last weekend I was actually enthusiastic about the movie we were seeing rather than just the snacks, which was a bonus. Unfortunately that meant that people talking would be doubly irritating. I know that I attract what I think and that going into a movie theater with the expectation that people will be obnoxious just increases the chance of that happening, but I am a realist too. People are going to be obnoxious whether I am there to witness it or not. And did I ever get to witness it.

We of course sat right in front of a set of teenage couples who could not keep their mouths closed. I almost went and bought them some popcorn just to make them be quiet for five minutes. I turned around at one point and saw that one of the young women had braces. Popcorn would not work, but maybe some gummy bears would glue her braces together and give us all a five minute reprieve from her movie commentary. Sadly, the commentary was really just a display of the fact that she was unable to follow the plot of the movie. Seriously, the movie was about a guy with split personality disorder. The plot is in the name of the movie!

I made it through the movie without jumping over the seats and strangling anyone. I walked out with my husband swearing that I would never go to a movie again. We went back to the hotel, stayed up late and slept in. And when breakfast arrived I opened that bakery basket and knew I would be back, movie and all.

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