Line!

Why should this guy be the only person with movie stories?

Future-wife and I decided to go see Ocean's 13. We both enjoyed Ocean's 11 (at least, the first time I saw it), and Ocean's 12 (even though realizing it was a pretty lousy movie) and so thought, why not 13?

Well, the movie started at 11, and we got there at 10, to avoid another "Knocked Up" fiasco (short story: we arrived for Knocked Up 30 min. before it started and were about 100 people back). Only two people were ahead of us in line, but I wasn't sure that we were waiting in the right place. So I said, "I'm going to get some authorities!", much to everyone's amusement. They thought I was nerdy, they did. But I progressed, until I found a worker. She politely showed me and all the others where we were supposed to wait (it wasn't where we were actually waiting, and I'll go further to add that our intended line-up position wasn't exactly intuitive), and the four of us lined up there.

About ten, or maybe fifteen minutes after we got into the appropriate line-up space, a crowd of people came from the wrong line-up space, where we used to be, into our area.

I couldn't help but notice that during this period. one lady didn't exactly follow standard procedure--i.e., following everyone else into the appropriate space--but instead walked right over to where the four of us were. I noticed she was very impatient--she couldn't stand still, and appeared constantly to be looking for someone--and thought to myself, "this is gonna be trouble". Eventually, the person she was looking for, "Liz", showed up next to her. Liz's impatient friend wailed, "I can't believe this place. I was waiting for an HOUR and then they tell me that I have to move." (Dear reader: this woman, whom I shall dub, because of her impatience, uh ... Sheldon? ... was not waiting since 9:30 pm; future-wife and the other two people were there well after 9:30 and, miraculously, also well before Sheldon.) Well great; now Sheldon had her rationalization; she had that crazy look in her eyes, that she was going to cut ahead of us.

So of course, she started the cut in line two-step. She didn't walk right in front of me and Future-wife or the two people ahead of us. Rather, she walked alongside the line, although not so far ahead of it that she walked out of line. Gradually, she edged forward until she was ahead of me and Future-Wife even while not being in the line. Rather, she was next to the line.

In addition to Sheldon (and, to be fair, Liz's) edging forward, I also overhead Liz talking to Sheldon about how she (i.e., Liz) was supposed to wait for something--let's say it's food--at some past date, but she absolutely wouldn't do it. Thus, both of them see themselves as exempt from lines.

Sure enough, by 10:40, the time the doors opened, Sheldon and Liz were well ahead of me and Future-wife, but behind the two people ahead of us. And let's say that even Sheldon and Liz couldn't rationalize to themselves that they should be allowed to cut ahead of those two, because those two were waiting right next to the doors; to cut ahead of them, they would have had to literally push them out of the way. Well, Sheldon and Liz weren't going to do that, right?

Right. They did something else.

When the doors opened, Liz--in her mid-forties, mind you--bolted ahead of the two people who were clearly in front of her, turned around and laughed in exaltation, and then took the handicapped seats.

This was truly an awe-inspiring display of movie-etiquette depravity. And it really would have irritated me had the seats been any good.

Seriously, it's times like that--which happen fairly often--that I tell myself the following Jeopardy! answer:

Answer: Someone who, if brazenly cut in front of, has no compunction about punching a stranger in the face.
Question: Who is my brother?

I really want to be my brother in situations like that. I have his anger; I just don't have his follow-through.

After watching that spectacle, I decided I needed some movie popcorn! (Actually, pretty much any event convinces me that I need some popcorn!) So I got in line and then, this happened:

Two Americans--not Mexicans, not Canadians, but white, U.S. citizens--were ahead of me in the popcorn line. The male one of them sauntered up to the counter and asked, "yeah, what do you have to eat?"

Concessioner: Huh?
American male: Yeah, what food do you have?
C: Uh...we got candy, we got ... popcorn, we got ... hot dogs...
AM: Yeah, give me two of them.
C: Hot dogs?
AM: Yeah, two hot dogs. And give me a medium popcorn.
C: Butter?
AM: Yeah, with butter. And give me, uh ... how big are the drinks?
C: Uh...this is a large, this is a medium ...
AM: Give me two medium drinks.
C: What kind of drinks.
AM: Yeah, I don't know.
C: What kind of drinks.
AM: Cokes. Gimme two cokes.
C: Okay, that'll be ... uh ... $24.00.
AM: Wait, she (pointing to the other American with him) might want something.
C: Okay.
AM: Gimme a candy.
C: Okay, what do you want?

I didn't hear what he said. Let's say Sour Patch Kids.

C: Anything else?
AM: Yeah, do you go any trays?
C: No. We're out of trays.
AM: What? Then how am I supposed to carry this stuff back to my seat?
C: Uh...
AM: Tell you what. You carry this stuff for me and take it back to the theater for me.

Dear reader, he was serious.

C (laughing): I can't do that.
AM: Then how am I supposed to carry this stuff back?
C: Uh, I don't know. We can keep some of it here for you.

Apparently, it never occurred to him to have his girlfriend carry some of the stuff.

I can't imagine what Big goes through every day.