Last week, Kyle and I (my fiance) decided to go see the movie Pirates of the Caribbean 4 in 3D. Pretty good movie (I am a huge Johnny Depp fan), but it turned out to be a semi-bad experience.
Let me tell you why this innocent night out at the movies to see Johnny Depp act like a drunken pirate turned into a bad experience.
Kyle and I got there really early. We were on our way back from looking at a 14-person tent at Target (that's a story for another day). So we were done shopping and there was no need to return home on the other side of town before the movie.
We showed up 20 minutes early, got our snacks and, as the only people in the movie theater, commenced to pulling out our phones and doing the only thing sensible people could think of doing when faced with 20 minutes of waiting -- playing Angry Birds and laughing about one another's defeats.
We were just passing time before the movie, very innocently I might add, with our phones on silent.
First, a note about Angry Birds.
I am NOT a gamer. I really don't like games because I am usually not good at them and they make me anxious. Not on cell phones, PlayStation, or anywhere. I can totally conquer Scrabble, but hand me a Xbox controller and I'll drive off a building. But Kyle would play Angry Birds for hours, and upon a curious glance one day, I thought it looked kinda fun with the animals and all.
So I tried it.
And anyone who has tried this game knows the end of the story. I was immediately hooked and now have an insatiable need to kill monkeys in my spare time.
Does it piss me off? Yes. Especially when those spider monkeys try and climb back up the box or branch and then shake their heads like they are laughing at me.
Am I good at it? Not really. Sometimes it takes me an hour to get through one level.
Do I keep playing it anyway? Yes. I can't help myself.
So there I am, a few days a week, in my supposedly relaxing evening lull, randomly yelling at the phone and getting ready to throw it across the room, because despite my awesome slingshot skills there is still one monkey left, cowarding under cement bricks and boards and laughing at me because I'm out of birds.
Kyle and I often joke about our Angry Birds addiction. We have a phrase around the household: "Families that play Angry Birds together stay together."
But anyway. I digress.
Soon the previews started, people trickled in and the theater was about halfway full. Through my peripheral vision, I spied a weird old man sitting behind us and to our left. It was obvious he was staring in our direction. Like I usually do when weird old men stare, I ignored him.
Let me explain just a few of the top reasons I call him "weird:"
1.) He was wearing a red plaid flannel shirt that looked like it came from CVS and a hat pulled down far over his hair - hair that was strangely straight, blond, messy, and wig-like.
2.) He was VERY tan, like an orangey-brown tan, even though he was old and wrinkly. I am going to guess about 65 years old.
3.) He looked drunk. He had glazed crazy-eyes and slurred speech.
A couple of minutes later, the little Sprint ad came on the movie screen that says to please "silence your phones - no texting or talking." (It did not say "no Angry Birds-playing," although it would have been funny if it did).
The movie had not started and the lights had not dimmed yet, so we continued to play. I am one of those people that hates when people use cell phones during movies, so I was prepared to turn my phone off immediately when those credits started rolling.
Suddenly I hear grumbling from behind us to our left, something to the effect of: "These idiots don't know how to read.....blah blah, something or other....cell phones....."
Kyle did not hear it, lost in his Angry Bird oblivion.
I chose to ignore it, once again, thinking maybe this crazy surfer-hunter-wigman will shutup.
