My resident navigator, “Lanny Joe Magellan,” planned and plotted our movie schedule by using an hourglass, a compass, a quadrant, and a nautical chart. That left us no time to dawdle between hotel check-in, travel between theaters, and movie start-times. Lanny calculated no “cushion intervals” for restaurant dining, so we picnicked in the hotel room between features.
The GPS on our 2010 vehicle is antiquated, so we relied on the MAP feature of my cell phone to maneuver us through traffic, detours, and freeway construction. It failed us once, which caused Lanny to turn south onto northbound Central Expressway. He recovered quickly, and the only discomfort was the chill in driving with the window down the rest of the theater-hopping day.
Our strategically-located hotel, calculated to be central to all movie theaters, was under remodel construction (figures, huh), so we limped along with no shower curtain (used ALL towels for the flooded floor), no bathtub stopper (had to sit on the drain to keep the water in the tub), and one tiny wastebasket for the entire suite. That was okay, though. We were on a movie mission.
Are you wondering which movies we saw? Okay, here’s a sampling: “I’ll Stomp Your Face,” “The Smell in the Basement,” “Honey, I Hit a Court House,” and “Look Who’s Bleating.” You believe me, don’t you?
To streamline our weekend, we packed the bare essentials. Lanny wore the same jeans all weekend, and I brought only one pair of earrings. In fact, I even left the eyeliner at home. Voila! No time-gobbling wardrobe or makeup decisions.
Some theaters were dine-in, complete with waiters and leather recliners. Brussels sprouts taste so much better in a luxury theater…in the dark. What I will say is this, though: It’ll be a long time before I’ll be hungry for popcorn again.
Another downside to movie binging in theaters in a short amount of time is the condition of the hair, caused from leaning the head back on the seat for hours at a time. I wasn’t unlike a hospital patient with severe bed head. I asked Lanny how the back of my hair looked. He mumbled something and I asked him to repeat the part I didn’t hear. “You said it looks like my hair was styled with a WHAT?”
“A New Holland threshing machine.”