The Best "Comedy" I've Seen in a Long Time

Yesterday was MLK day and I was off from both jobs and Chrissie was home from school and EJ, being in retail, was working. He made a point of moaning about this the night before. I still got up before he did because I made a couple of appointments for the day and one was at 8 am. Silly man. But, I digress.

I asked Chrissie what she wanted to do with our day (after the appointments were taken care of). She thought for a moment and decided that she wanted to see "The Unborn." "The Unborn" is a PG-13 scary movie. Chrissie just turned 13 in December so this was a real treat...her first PG-13 movie in the theater...her first scary movie in the theater. It wasn't really her first PG-13 movie, but it was the first one that she could attend without a guardian if she wanted to. She gets her love of scary movies from me so I was excited that she didn't ask to see something animated. (She has to watch those with her father or Randall depending if it's "animated" or "amine." I'm told that there is a difference.) Any ways...I said yes. She asked if we could take the same kid with us who wimped out on the killer trail allowing me to be a hero this summer. I said yes again.

We decided to go to the matinee and save some money. Apparently, everyone in the city thought of that too. We had to park at the far end of the parking lot. The theater was full of young teenagers that made the viewing experience different than most.

First, the young woman who was lead in this movie (I won't say film...I hear that isn't the same thing either.) was drop dead gorgeous and in her underwear several times. At first, the guys in the audience who could whistle did whistle during those scenes. (Something you don't often have to deal with when sitting with older audiences.) This changed as the boys began to get startled. bwahahahaha

After the first startling moment, Chrissie's friend was hiding under her coat and Chrissie had her feet in the chair and was watching the movie through the gap between her knees that she would open or close depending on her fear level.

After the second startling moment, Chrissie's friend took her coat and walked out of the theater with her head covered. Chrissie used my phone to txt her friend (I hear that Chrissie is the ONLY 13 yr old without her own cell phone). She was going to hide in the bathroom, but the scary scene that caused her to leave took place in a bathroom so she was too afraid to go into the bathroom. She decided instead to play video games while we watched the movie. Boy, am I glad I spent $5 on a ticket so that she could play video games in the theater...not. Note to self, do not take this child with you on the killer trail and do not take her to scary movies no matter how much Chrissie begs.

I have to admit, that was a startling scene. I know this because the next time something remotely spooky came on a boy who looked like he was about sixteen ran across the seats and out of the theater. I couldn't help but point and laugh. I know it's juvenile, but that was funny. That was too much for a couple of teenage girls who went running out of the theater right behind him. Now Chrissie and I were both laughing even though she was still hiding behind her knees.

When Chrissie jumped at the next startling moment (I call these startling moments...because they were meant to make you jump...not to scare you). She was embarrassed slightly so she turned to see if anyone saw her and jumped again when she saw two people hiding behind the wall next to her chair watching the movie from behind the wall. I decided putting my hand over Chrissie's drink might save me from getting covered with Mountain Dew if she got startled again.

The movie was so predictable that the mother next to us was telling her younger than 13 yr olds what would be happening next in order to prepare them to cover their heads at the appropriate moments. Any body who had ever seen any scary movie knew what was going to happen next and how the story was going to end. This enabled me to watch the audience and laugh until my sides hurt. I seriously have never laughed that hard in a theater before. People were running out and sneaking back in. Every now and again they'd time their entrance wrong and and get startled again and turn around and run back out before they got to their seats!

I thought that it was silly that Chrissie and others were hiding while watching this movie. How does it make it less scary to watch something from between the fingers of the hands that you are covering your eyes with? It wasn't until Chrissie was telling her friend about what happened in the movie did I realize that she actually missed parts of the movie because she'd close her knees together and block out the screen at the scariest point of the startling moments. I had to correct her a couple of times. This made me laugh even harder. Chrissie was proud of herself for lasting the whole movie when so many others didn't. She explained that watching a scary movie in a theater was a lot scarier than watching it on TV. She was glad that she watched it with her mother because if she watched it with her friends she thinks that she would have ran out of the theater and been laughed at like the kids that we were laughing at. It was a real bonding experience. (You'd have to know us to know that though. :))

So...I recommend "The Unborn," not as a scary movie, but as a comedy under these conditions: Watch it as a matinee with a bunch of barely teenagers. I wouldn't have had to do that day's sit-ups if I had known I was going to get that kind of workout laughing.

Speaking of working out. I'm still doing that. I am now half the dress size that I was last year, but twice the dress size I was on my wedding day. (I don't think I actually had hit puberty yet on my wedding day, so I'm not shooting for that.) Marcela is still trying to "straighten my back" though. However, she tried to give me a heart attack by jumping up from behind me at the gym last week and she still hasn't learned to not poke me in the belly without warning me first. (Yes, I'm still fluffy around the middle. If you want to know that...you could just ask. :)) Crazy marathon runner ran a marathon this weekend in Arizona and wants me to join her on the next one in Virginia. She asked me to join her in front of students so she's going to have help bugging me about this. I'm fairly certain that a marathon will kill me though. I am going to jog again once it's not below 50 outside, but I'm not shooting for 26 miles in a day either. Right now all my exercising except shivering is happening in the gym. :)