Guest writer

At the movies

A night out can test marriage

Have you checked it out lately? The price of a movie ticket? A few weeks ago Barney called to invite me to a movie.

Take the wives. Maybe go out and eat first. Make a night of it, he said.

I called Joanne at work. She was having a pretty tough day. I could tell she was having a pretty tough day by the way she answered the phone when her boss handed it to her as she was lying on her back under some guy’s ’68 F-150. She had just finished bolting up a transmission rebuild at the auto-parts store where she is assistant manager. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello, sweetie pie, and how is your day going?

Joanne: Censored.

Me: I’m sorry. Me too. They canceled the third episode of Mayberry RFD this morning and I had to watch another Victoria’s Secret 30-minute infomercial.

Joanne: Censored.

Me (starting to sweat now): Well, I tried to turn the channel. But the remote button wouldn’t work. But, hey, I was just calling to see if you would like to go to the movies with Barney and Barbie tonight?

Joanne (starting to soften now): Still censored.

Me: I’ll take that as a yes.

Joanne: Click.

I called Barney back and told him Joanne was tickled that he would invite us to go to the movies with them us and wanted me to be sure and express her gratitude and warmth. He said they would pick us up at 6:30. That way we could get something to eat before the movie.

I dug through the morning’s paper that Fluffy had, for the most part, already shredded. Only two sections were still intact, and thankfully one of them was the entertainment section that listed the movie schedules.

As I spread the paper out on the kitchen counter, I saw it. There it was. The 7:45 p.m. movie that Barney was going gaga over. Thankfully I looked at the rates. They had gone up yet again. I had just enough time to drive down to the bank and cash in one of our savings bonds.

It was a good thing I did, too, because had Joanne seen those ticket prices, she would have opted to leave the bond in the bank. (They are for her retirement-but I don’t know why she is saving so much. How active can she be when she is 75 anyway?)

We arrived at the theater 15 minutes late. Even though we were all stuffed from our dinner at the Sonic Drive-In (I must be getting older … I had trouble with that third foot-long chili-cheese dog), we stood in line at the concession stand to load up on two-day-old popcorn that was the consistency and texture of packaging material. But not as tasty.

And a four-liter mega-mug of warm, flat Diet Pepsi (the ice machine has had yellow police tape around it since the city health department pulled a surprise inspection).

And of course, a Hershey bar the size of a sheet of plywood for Joanne.

As we walked into the stadium-seating “salon” (our movie was in number 37; it was a big theater), the projectionist had already interrupted the two hours of automobile ads, TV commercials, senseless trivia questions, and Progressive Insurance spots with Flo, and had started the actual movie.

I fully expected to have to struggle to find our seats in the darkened theater. But to our shock, the theater was fully illuminated. Even though the house lights were dark, the entire 185-seat salon was aglow. We were in a den of texters; 185 smartphones glared with grammatically incoherent jargon that anyone over 23 would find as indecipherable as Egyptian hieroglyphics. Thumbs were flailing.

Slowly, the little 16-megapixel LED screens died as the last “where r u at” was dispatched. Then another phenomena took its place, equally as disturbing as the thumbing marathon. Talking. Out loud. I heard only one person whisper in the entire salon number 37. It was Joanne. She was upset and was expressing her outrage to Barbie. It went something like this:

Joanne: Censored.

Barbie: Equally censored.

I always sit next to Barney when we go to a movie together. I have to explain nearly every scene to him.

When I glanced at his eyes they looked just like the little rotating blue circles that your computer displays when it is in search mode. As he watched the various scenes unfold, I could tell that they were especially challenging to him.

I had to explain several scenes to him twice. Since he doesn’t hear well in his left ear, I found myself nearly shouting.

Thankfully he fell asleep after the cartoon was over and the movie began.

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Bill Rausch is a freelance writer from Little Rock. Email him at [email protected].

Editorial, Pages 17 on 01/25/2014

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