My date that night was named Rebecca something. She had hair. She also wore clothes for some reason. “Okay, sweetheart,” I said, standing in the concession line. “Fork over the cash.”
“Excuse me?”
“Come on, toots. You paid for the tickets; you might as well follow through with the sweet treats. Don’t give me no back sass now.” I’ve noticed a lot of women like to give sass.
“I’m not paying seven dollars for a box of junior mints,” the rather disagreeable woman said. “I could have just snuck in my own candy.”
“That’s not right,” I said. “That’s not fair to the business.”
“What?”
“Think of the owners of this place, you imbecile. How are they supposed to feed their families?”
“But we gave them money for the tickets!”
“Actually,” I said, pushing up the bridge of my glasses, “It’s the movie studios that take the lion’s share of ticket sales. Theaters make most of their money at the concession stand. In fact, I always make it a point to buy the most expensive snacks, whether I plan to eat them or not, to better support my local cinema.”
Women love this kind of talk, and no doubt by now my date was moist as a Christmas ham. But we still had a movie to sit through. I lightly scalded her hand at the hot butter spout in order to break the sexual tension, and we headed to our seats.
THIS WAY TO CINEMATIC ADVENTURE
“This floor is sticky,” my date moaned, and not in the sexual way that men like.
“Yeah, I peed there,” I said.
“What? Just now?”
“No, last time. I peed there last time. Anyway, shut up, the trailers are starting.” They weren’t. I just wanted her to shut up.
Loudly munching our popcorn, we stared at a scrolling screen of movie trivia and waited for the trailers to start, and I began to imagine what the eventual trailers might be, and whether I would want to see the films represented. “Ooh, not that one, I think,” I said to nobody. “And not that one either.”
An elderly couple entered the theater, breaking my concentration. “Damn it,” I muttered, and as I watched them shamble forward on ancient hips to gradually find their seats, I became very troubled.
They sat down right in front of us, because of course they did.
I tapped the man-one on the shoulder. “Sir,” I said into his ear hair. “Don’t you have a job?”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s 2pm on a Tuesday. What are you doing here? You should be out earning money for your missus. Or, Ma’am,” I said to the lady-one, “perhaps you’d like to labor in a factory? I hear good things about manufacturing work.”
Rebecca started tugging at my elbow for some reason.
“You should have a job,” I said to them. “Both of you should have jobs.” Then I leaned back and pouted because I was angry. Goddamn elderly freeloaders. They were probably going to fart a lot, too. “They probably just ate a whole bunch of cabbages,” I said aloud.
“Who are you talking to?” my date asked.
“Shut up,” I said.
COMING ATTRACTIONS
At last, the real trailers started. The first one was for a rom-com starring Ben Affleck. I always hope that Ben Affleck is in a movie. “Hey, maybe he’ll be in this movie too.”
“Who?”
“Ben Affleck,” I said. “Give me my popcorn.”
“I thought we were sharing.”
“Jesus,” I said, shaking my head. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
In the next trailer Tom Hanks was playing an old space guy, but a different space guy than that other space guy he played. He looked pretty old. I think it was based on a true story. I tried putting my arm around Rebecca’s shoulders. She didn’t fight me in any serious way, so I kept it there.
Next came a trailer all about Tom Cruise, and he was screaming about a coming apocalypse. Just screaming and screaming and screaming. The world was ending, Tom Cruise assured us. We were all worthless scum and we’d brought this destruction down upon ourselves. “You deserve nothing,” Tom Cruise said to us. “You will die alone.” Come to think of it I’m not sure it was a movie trailer. There was no rating or title.
Then Chris Pratt and Margot Robbie showed up in trailer number fourteen, and all was right with the world. They were doing something about a Christmas.
“So, what do you do for a living?” I asked my date.
“Well, I work mostly in–”
“Shut up, the movie’s starting!”
The lights dimmed, and I went rock hard at the hot and sweaty realization that I was about to witness the grandeur and majesty of Revengers 6: Return of Gastron, the culmination of the entire Revengers saga up to that point, and what would surely turn out to be the single greatest event in cinematic history…
THE GREATEST MOVIE SCENE OF ALL TIME
The movie opened on a long-awaited wedding ceremony in a big stone cathedral. “Don’t get any ideas,” I said to my date, who did not respond. An old preacher guy who smiled too much stood between the couple in question, none other than our long-suffering fan favorite heroes Space Man Todd and Primal Scream, lovelorn participants of a star-crossed romance that had seemed doomed from the very start; Todd, a brash young prince from the planet Nebulon, and Scream, a weird half-cat lady.
Yet somehow, through their many battles and adventures and even solo appearances in different characters’ films, both heroes had found each other at last in the warm embrace of the wildly successful Revengers franchise, the crown franchise of the entire BCU, having already grossed 127 billion dollars that year alone.
But, befitting of the depressing pattern of everything else in their troubled and unlucky lives, this happy ceremony was soon cut short.
Just before the star-crossed pair could say their final “I do’s” and be granted even a moment’s respite from the storm and constant chaos of the superhero life, a big blue bolt thingy shot through the top of the cathedral. The priest was killed outright.
“This is probably gonna win awards,” I said.
My date, Rebecca something, didn’t seem to agree. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “I don’t understand anything that’s happening.”
“Are you stupid? The big bad guy is making his big move! They’ve been building to this moment for forty-seven films. Keep up!” And I had to resist the urge to shout at her, but inwardly I was seething. “Stupid girl,” I hissed, shaking my popcorn at her like a rattler’s tail. “Shall I recite the entire BCU lore to you in a single sitting? The expulsion of Ragon the Mighty? The death of Captain Patriot? The bludgeoning of Susan? Christ, I thought you were a fan!”
“I thought it was an adventure movie.”
“Is this not an adventure?” I asked her, pointing at the obscenely large screen. “Look at them! They’re swinging all over the place!” They were. For some reason all fifteen characters currently onscreen were swinging among the skyscrapers of a large cityscape together. And they looked pretty damn happy about it. “I don’t know much, but I do know that if a motion picture has swinging in it, it’s either an adventure film or a comedy story. And sometimes it’s both,” I explained. “Stop trying to pull away from me.”
A LITTLE MOVIE ROMANCE?
I figured now was a good time to cut a hole into the bottom of the popcorn bucket and stick my dick inside. So I cut a hole into the bottom of the popcorn bucket with a pocketknife. I always carry a pocketknife in case I have to cut a hole out of the bottom of a popcorn bucket and stick my dick inside. It’s just common sense.
The hot butter scalded my penis. “What the fuck, butter?” I said to the butter. The salt was also being a piece of shit. Then I asked Rebecca what her favorite movie snack was, and whether it was popcorn.
“I like Twizzlers,” Rebecca said.
“You should put your hand in the popcorn bucket,” I said. “Popcorn is good.”
And Rebecca did put her hand in the popcorn bucket, but it was a rather large bucket, and it would be a while before she found anything penis-shaped. Eventually I lost interest.
We ended up just holding hands. Which was fine, I guess. I just hoped the dame wasn’t carrying any hand germs all over her germ-hands. They looked pretty germy. I turned to her and said, “Do you know about germs?”
“Yes,” she said, blinking.
“Good,” I said. “That’s good. Now be quiet, they’re resurrecting Captain Patriot, an event the Internet predicted exactly seven years ago to this day.”
“How are they able to just resurrect him?”
I checked to see if her ears were bleeding. “His mother was a witch. Used to be a bad witch and a bad mother but now she’s a good witch and a good mother. Look, it’s a whole thing.”
“Could you at least loosen the handcuffs a little?” I’d forgotten I’d cuffed her to the armrest.
“Could I? Sure. Will I? Not until the second end credit teaser.”
AWE AND WONDER
The magic of cinema truly knows no limits. Movies can make you feel like an invincible champion, or the ultimate underdog. One moment you’re an international jewel thief, the next you’re being chased around by some computer-generated scorpion creature.
Movies show us that anything is possible, no matter how impossible it seems. And with the gift of hope, movies have the power to heal us, to transform us, every now and then reminding us that no down is truly out, no obstacle is insurmountable, and that sometimes even the ugly guy gets the girl.
I leaned in close to my date and whispered into her ear, “I love you.”
Women love this kind of talk. I saw it in the movies.