Adventures with Angie

Last Friday, Angie and I attended a Spanish movie showing at Rock Valley College.

I was in a better frame of mind when I thought Angie was IN the RVC Spanish class and therefore trying to earn some extra credit. Much to my surprise, she informed me halfway through the movie that she was NOT actually in THIS class, but would be in the summer, and so she thought this was a good way to earn some brownie points with the teacher.

I sat through a Spanish movie with hard-to-read yellow subtitles, so she could earn brownie points?! At least there was cheese popcorn and Jarritos.

The movie, Ay! Carmela, was a little convoluted, but I eventually got into the story. About halfway through, Angie leaned over, said the plot was TOO SLOW, and asked if I wanted to leave.

“What? Now? I’m just getting interested,” I informed her. But she did manage to talk me into sneaking out right after the movie finished, so we didn’t have to listen to the hour or so lecture that followed.

In a fit of unexpected generosity (and upon the sudden realization that Angie’s birthday is on the 17th), I offered to take her out to dinner to celebrate. We dined at Chili’s and celebrated Angie’s birthday and her acceptance to the Great Lakes Baptist Convention’s Women Speaker Bureau – or something like that. It’s a newly formed organization that trains and provides women speakers to churches for special events.

Afterwards, we headed to the “real” movies. We both wanted to see Disturbia. But when I saw the line of hopped-up, hormonal teenagers snaking out of the movie theater, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see the same movie as the writhing mass of Make-Out Nation.

“Maybe they’re here to see Are We Done Yet?” Angie said, with longing in her voice.

“No, that’s a kid movie,” I told her.

“Maybe they want to see Meet the Robinsons?” She said with a little whine.

“Nope.” I stubbornly replied. “They’re here to see Disturbia. I really don’t want to see that movie with a bunch of teenagers. Remember when we saw X-Men 3 on opening weekend? It was us and 900 teenage boys. We were digging popcorn out of our hair for two days, and everyone called us ma’am.”

“It’s true,” The teenage ticket agent confirmed for us. “We sold out the last two showings of Disturbia. We had to go in and ask some kids to leave in both the showings.” He leaned in, “I think they were going at it.”

“Maybe you two would be happier seeing another movie. Perfect Stranger is supposed to be good,” Corey, our favorite teenage ticket agent, chimed in.

Angie and I struck up a friendship with Corey last year. He works the late shift on the weekday and weekend movies, so he sees us a lot. We probably wouldn’t know his name except that once, halfway through our bucket of popcorn; I poked my finger on something sharp. To my surprise, I pulled out a butter-soaked plastic nametag with “COREY” in big letters. When I returned it (and the uneaten popcorn) to the refreshment stand, he sheepishly washed it off and pinned it to his uniform.

We’ve been on a first name basis ever since.

“We’ll take two to Perfect Stranger,” I told the first ticket agent. “I am paying, you know,” I reminded Angie.

“Yeah,” She muttered under her breath. “But it’s supposed to be MY birthday gift.”

“You’ll get over it,” I assured her as I half-dragged her into the theater.

As luck would have it, our theater was right next to the 10 p.m. packed-out showing of Disturbia.

“Can’t you just smell the Clearasil? Aren’t you glad we are going to a grown-up movie?” I tried to persuade Angie, but she just rolled her eyes.

There were about 30 people in our theater, and I thought the movie was pretty good, although it was hard to hear due to the pulsating noise of the Disturbia audience next door. We thought Angie had figured out the plot, but the twist at the very end threw us off.

I thought the most implausible thing in Perfect Stranger was the supposition that great looking people like Bruce Willis or Halle Berry would ever have any trouble getting a date. Yeah, like that would ever happen.

As we were leaving, Angie looked back at the kids streaming out of Disturbia. “I’ll bet we missed a good one,” she said sadly.

“Look,” I promised her. “We’ll come back on a school night and see it then. There won’t be as many people.”

She rolled her eyes again. “When did you become such a senior citizen?”

I just knew she’d get over it. Well, at least I thought she would, until I saw that Disturbia is the number one movie in the nation and getting rave reviews. Sheesh. So, when DID I become such a senior citizen, huh?

Now, I’m just waiting for Angie to call and gloat. Oh well, happy birthday anyway, girl!