$30.25

I had an extra night off last week because I thought my mom's group was getting together for dinner a week earlier than we actually were and since Ryan agreed to watch Gavin I decided I should still go out. I chose to spend my few baby less hours by myself at the movie theater. Sure, I could have invited a friend but my girlfriends probably would have politely declined to see the movie I wanted to watch, but I'll get to that in a minute.

Almost more shocking than my choice of movie was the cost of my few hours out. Instead of planning ahead and taking the bus to the movie theater I drove. Since it was late at night, and by late I mean 7 o'clock, and the theater was downtown in an area with a dearth of off street parking and the pay lots only taking exact change of which I had exactly one $20 bill I parked in a garage. If I planned ahead, not enough to take the bus but enough to find cheap parking, I would have thought to look up the exact location of Pacific Place's garage where parking is cheap, relatively speaking, and parked there and saved a few bucks.

There went the first $10.

Since I see about 1 movie or less a year in the theater I decided it would be permissible to buy popcorn and a soda. Sure, I could have bought a jumbo box of candy at Bartell's and put it in my purse and saved some money for Gavin's college education but I didn't. I wanted popcorn with butter, lots and lots of fake butter that you can only get on the top layer because they fill the stupid bag to the top and hand it to you to put your own butter on because to have them put the butter on in stages as they fill up the bag would be too much work and they would have to charge too much for it.

Oh, wait. They did charge me too much.

My second $10 was for a SMALL popcorn and a SMALL soda. I asked the cashier how much for their #2 combo (medium popcorn and medium drink); he said without batting an eye, $13. I choked. He must get that reaction a lot because he just stood there staring at me. So, Mr. Cashier hands me my small bag of popcorn and jumbo cup of soda. Seriously. Why are soda sizes so relative? A 32 oz soda is not small. I should have ordered a child's size soda.

Of course it cost to get into the movie and it was actually the first money I spent, $10.25 for admission to secure a seat for my behind in the theater.

After getting hosed at the concessions stand I took my munchies and trough of soda and settled in to just the right seat. I was just early enough to catch the last trivia question and right on time for the witty spots on turning off cell phones and I got to watch all 21 minutes of previews.

TWENTY-ONE minutes of previews. Is that not a little over kill? C'mon, the feature presentation was going to be 2 1/2 hours, do we really want to add to our sore butt time and gotta-pee-'cause-I-drank-32 ounces-of-fluid-but-I-don't-want-to-miss-a-minute-of-the-movie-chair-dance? I think not.

It is time for me to divulge the name of the movie I watched. It is quite shocking. Really. Aside from Ryan I have only told one friend the movie I watched and she played like she wasn't too shocked but I really think she was.

Sorry, Mom, AnnaLisa, everyone else who thought I was 'above' this but the movie was...

Sex and the City.

Yep, your little April watched Sex and the City and aside from the sex parts she really enjoyed the movie.

I am a closet Sex and the City fan. I don't remember when I started watching it but it was after it had gone off the air and was being re-run on TBS. I think insomnia and pregnancy were involved and it is all TiVo's fault. It recorded the TBS re-runs under TiVo suggestions. One night when there was nothing to watch and I was wide awake I thought I would watch a minute of the show to see what the fuss was all about. I found out. Life. It was all about life.

As much as I despised some aspects of their characters it was easy to see the common thread of love that ran through the women on the show. In the heyday of the show women wanted to know if they were a Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda Hobbs, Charlotte York-MacDougal-Goldenblatt or Samantha Jones. I think I would be a bit of Carrie and Charlotte, minus the killer clothes. I would be the least like Miranda and it would be a cold, cold day in hell before anyone would compare me to Samantha. I didn't even like Kim Catrell (Samantha) when she did interviews. Bleh.

I knew the version of the show I watched on TV was the cleaned up version but I had no idea how much it was cleaned up. Yipes. The sex was just unnecessary in the movie. Really. Do we need to see that? Are we not an intelligent lot? Can we not figure out what's going on behind closed doors?

Watching a movie by oneself is not all the bad, especially if you like to watch the movie and not talk during the movie. This was the first time I ever went to the movie theater by myself. I will eat alone no problem and I actually enjoy eating by myself. Some people can't stand to eat alone, they feel all sad and lonely. Not me. I'm good company.

Ha.

The part about watching a movie by yourself that I don't like the is the after part: there is no one to talk to about it.

That part nearly killed me!!! I watched a movie I really enjoyed and I really, really, really wanted to talk to someone about it but who? Ryan? Ha. I told him that I didn't like watching movies by myself because I had no one to talk to about it.

Of course this is where the husband (in the fantasy land) says, "Tell me all about it, my dear. I will hang on your every word; let me see this girlie movie through your eyes."

OR where your real husband says, "Mhmh." As in, "Straight up! You have no one to talk to about this movie, ESPECIALLY, me."

I can't say I blame him. If he came home after watching Laura Croft: Tomb Raider and was dying to talk about all of the action my eyes would glaze over. Actually, if Ryan ever uttered the words, "dying to talk" and he wasn't quoting me I would keel over.

Right there. On the spot. Don't get me wrong. Ryan talks. We talk. We have good talks. But he is never DYING to talk; not many men have a pressing need to gab.