I wrote this for some friends and my livejournal after my son’s first movie experience. Take from it what you will. He was a little older than 2 1/2 at the time.
I have for some time been curious as to how well Kirk could do at the movies. I know friends who have taken their similar-aged kids to G-rated movies will good results, so I’m willing to try. However, I am not convinced of success beforehand. Therefore, I have vowed to attend a movie that is:
**Cheap. If we have to leave ten minutes into it, I don’t want to be bemoaning the ticket cost.
**Enthralling to kids. Kirk has to be hooked like Mike TeeVee from the get-go to have any hope of him sitting still.
**Not Going to Drive Me To Commit Suicide. I’m sorry, some of those kids’ movies are just godawfully painful to watch as adult. I do not wish to suffer near brain death at the plot line.
**Poorly attended. I don’t want to worry about a theatreful of glaring moviegoers if we have a noise/behavior problem.
Enter this weekend. It is Sunday, and Mr. Cranky was playing tennis. I am bored out of my skull and need a break from research. Kirk was also bored. I look in the paper at the cheap-seats theatre and lo and behold! Shrek is playing! Since it’s been out on VHS and DVD for months now, everyone has seen it. The only idiots who are going to pay good money to see it on a Sunday are people like me, grownups desperate to occupy their kids for a few hours. Besides which, I’ve only seen part of it so I am interested. And since it is a cartoon, I think it will get Kirk’s attention fast. So it’s got the price, the presumed clientele, and the content I want. I grab the keys and a sippy cup and off we go.
We pay our $2.50 apiece (well, I pay for both of us; Kirk never carries a wallet) and I buy a ridiculously expensive soda and we go into the theatre where the film has already begun.
Problem #1. I have NEVER been in such a dark theatre. It’s pitch black. Not even the light reflecting from screen is penetrating the suffocating darkness (it doesn’t help that the opening scenes of the movie take place in a dark swamp). I have no idea where the seats are, much less whether anyone’s butt is already sitting in them.
I fumble my way to a pair of seats in the last row, close to the door. When the screen lightens for a village scene, I note that there are two families in the rows ahead of us, both with little kids. Good.
Problem #2 The door keeps opening to allow other latecomers in. Kirk thinks the door is cool and wants to open and close it himself. I manage to dissuade him.
Problem #3: Folding seats! Here’s a new one on Kirk. Get up, get down. Get up, get down. Get up, get down. Fun!
Problem #4: Kicking the seats in front of us makes a cool noise! I manage to get him to stop, but it remains an intermittent problem.
Picture me, at this point, leaning forward in my seat, nerves stretched taut, with one hand poised to grab our coats, the other poised to snag Kirk at the first major disturbance. I fret intermittently about how I can grab my drink and purse too.
I suddenly think, Hmm, maybe some popcorn. So I whisper to Kirk we should get some. He happily trots out after me, we get a huge bag for more big bucks, and go back in. This works, he sits down quietly and chomps away. In fact, it’s working great for awhile.
Problem #5: It suddenly hits me that my friend Sheila knows someone who knows someone who knows someone whose toddler died from choking on a popcorn hull. How far is the hospital from here? Why didn’t I bring my cell phone? Why haven’t I speed-programmed 911 on my cell phone? I bite my nails and ponder this.
Problem #6: We’re spilling popcorn. Kirk, who never has cared before about anything being spilled and messy (you should see my living room for proof), notices and becomes obsessed with picking this up. I try to discourage him by kicking it down a few rows, but I also step on some and he scolds in a conversational voice: “Don’t break it mama! Don’t break the popcorn!”
Problem #7: He’s not just picking it up. He’s putting it back in the bag. And eating some. From the theatre floor. This is disgusting beyond measure, yet if I restrain him he’ll freak. Normally I wouldn’t hesitate to stop this, but geez, we’re in a movie. Holy mother of god. I think about the sorts of the things that are on the floor, dropped and tracked in on shoes. Oh my.
I manage to solve this one by offering him some crackers we bought at the same time I bought the popcorn. Once he’s chomping those, I remove the bag of popcorn (or shall I say, the bag of popcorn, dirt, hair, gum, and canine fecal matter) and hide it.
Problem #8 becomes the deal breaker. Kirk picks up his sippy cup and it slips out of his hand. I lunge for it, but it is too late. It rolls down the aisle beside us (slanted floor) and then under the long row of seats and just keeps going with a nice noisy rolling clatter all the way down the theatre. Uh oh. Kirk howls “My juice!” and I hear someone in a nearby row snicker. Oh boy. Kirk doesn’t seem overly upset but god knows whether he might get himself worked up into thinking this is a tragedy. I figure this is enough. I grab our coats, my purse, the little plastic fishing pole Kirk brought with him, the bag of popcorn/fecal matter, and Kirk. Out we go.
All in all, though, it wasn’t a total failure. We were there for an hour. He has now seen the mysteries of a theatre, so next time that won’t be so distracting. Of course, that’ll be when he’s fifteen.
This experiment cost me $5 for the movie, $8 for the food, and $4 to replace the sippy cup (I considered it GONE–I did not ask management to save it for me when they clean the theatre). I am not calculating the cost of Kirk’s possible bout with e. coli or intestinal worms because that hasn’t materialized. Yet. So that’s $17 for an hour of entertainment with my toddler, and hour which wasn’t even all that fun for me since I was coiled like a cobra ready to strike the whole time.
But you know what? On a boring Sunday winter afternoon, trapped inside with a rascally toddler, it still woulda been worth it at twice the price.