Last night J. talked me into going to see Firewall, not so much to see Harrison Ford in action, but to snicker at the technical mistakes. So there I am, sitting next to Mr. Network Ops watching the movie unfold, and everytime Han Solo mutters something about encrypted yaddayadda, root whatchamahoozit, or server blahdiblah, he presses his knee into mine as if to say, "Oh, really?!"
Then, when Harrison Ford's character MacGyvers together a contraption made from an iPod and the scanner from a fax machine to copy some information off a computer screen, I knew I'd have to listen to him go on about how there was no power to the scanner and did I see a battery pack hidden somewhere all the way home. And, I was right.
But that's not what I what I wanted to tell you.
What I wanted to tell you is that J. and I have terrible audience seating karma. Something about the two of us together means that inevitably we're going sit next to the Farter or the Loud Talker.
For years, we had season tickets to our local theater company. I looked forward to our Friday night theater dates. Such good actors, such interesting plays, such mental stimulation. I swear that it wasn't having kids that made us cancel our subscription, it was the fact that we got tired of sitting next to:
- the people that would sneak Jack-in-the-Box into the theater and eat it during the play
- the once-upon-a-time-I-was-an-actress who would recite every line along with actors
- the Shifters and/or Tweakers who can't sit still
- the Mouth Breathers
- and Text Message Guy ("Fuck! Webvan's down!")
Last night in the movie theater, there was a guy behind us that kept falling asleep and snoring. Every two minutes on the dot, sawing logs. The people next to us kept turning around and hitting his knees to wake him up.
And, when we walked into the theater and saw the stroller, we knew that our bad seating karma was upon us once more. A snorer and a baby. That's a first for us, but it wasn't surprising at all.
