— पाँच हजार चार सौ चौवालीस —
Basically the entirety of last night was taken up by my return for a second viewing of
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, a movie with no workable showtimes this week any earlier than 6:45 p.m., and which is two hours and 43 minutes long.
I wouldn't have bothered to make this the first movie all year that I have gone to see a second time, except that I assured Alexia I would be happy to see it again after she got back from her vacation with cousins in North Carolina, from which she returned on Sunday. She left the Friday before last, which gave us only the day before as the window for seeing the movie before she left, and she couldn't make the time. I wound up going to see it with Tracy on Friday the 14th instead.
Kind of last minute, Shobhit joined us as well—his first time going to a movie theater to see a movie since before the campaign, before even going to Australia: since going to see
80 for Brady on Valentine's Day. He even commented last night on how long it had been since he last went to a movie (not counting
Some Like It Hot at Cal Anderson Park last Friday), but I'm not sure he even remembered that it had been fully more than five months.
He hadn't planned on joining us, either. He'd had a bad day so far with campaigning, and texted me that he was feeling down about it. I texted him,
Maybe you could use some fun? Do you want to come to Mission Impossible with Alexia and me tonight? It's discount Tuesday plus I have enough Rewards points to cover it. It would be better than just staying home feeling depressed!
Shobhit has this kind of annoying habit of texting me and then not bothing to look for any responses until hours later, which kind of happened here. I sent that text at 3:11 in the afternoon, and by the time I got home at 5:00, he still hadn't seen it. I was pleased to find, though, that when I brought it up again, he took little convincing, and did decide to join us.
I'm really glad he did. The three of us left to walk downtown at 6:15, and he got a nice bit of socializing during the walk, chatting with Alexia about the challenges of the campaign, the ballot collection data he obsessively tracks, and even where Alexia had gone on her vacation (Nags Head, a town of 3,000 on the Outer Banks of North Carolina). And then, once we were actually watching the movie, he seemed to have a blast. I think he might even have had the best time out of all three of us, although both Alexia and I also enjoyed it, even both also feeling that a good half an hour could have been shaved off of it.
— पाँच हजार चार सौ चौवालीस —
— पाँच हजार चार सौ चौवालीस —
Shobhit did make things a bit unnecessarily chaotic and complicated at the theater before we went into the auditorium for our movie. He wanted water, as always, which usually we can get quickly, but there was truly a stunning number of movie-goers last night—and not just for a Tuesday, but for any day—and the cashiers were all so busy the only logical course of action was to wait in line.
Waiting line didn't take too long, actually, but it did give Shobhit some time, even after he went to the bathroom and returned, to decide he wanted popcorn. He decided to get a large, which costs over ten bucks(!), but I still had $3 in Rewards points so he got a roughly 30% discount at least. They were struggling to keep pace with the popcorn orders, however, and we had to wait several minutes to get our popcorn bucket filled.
Shobhit wanted to get extra bags to fill, so he could get his free refill before he even came to the theater. Alexia was waiting patiently, as we waited in a pretty thick crowd of people gathered to wait for the same thing as new popcorn was popped. Finally, with the extra bags filled (two of them), Alexia and I went upstairs to find out auditorium and take our seats. Shobhit took a surprisingly long time to join us, and I assume it was because he had to wait yet again for new popcorn to get popped. Shobhit finally arrived, and seemed somewhat surprised to discover Alexia did not want any popcorn. She usually has some when we have movie nights at home, but she declared last night she only likes popcorn with a bubbly drink, which she did not have here.
I don't ever buy popcorn myself at AMC theaters. They only use butter "flavoring" which is frankly gross. I get popcorn on occasion at SIFF Cinema theaters because they use real butter, which makes all the difference in the world. When there is the bland mainstream AMC popcorn available, though, of course I'm going to graze on it, which I did indeed once Shobhit finally came to his seat.
And? After first thinking we would take the leftover popcorn home, and then deciding against it, probably a good half of the popcorn was still left at the end of the movie, and then Shobhit said just to throw it away. So, he spent the money on the popcorn, and made it this chaotic production before the movie, all for nothing. Fun!
At least the movie itself was genuinely fun. It wasn't really that big a deal, I suppose.
When the movie ended, multiple other movies had ended as well. My guess is most of the other people were coming out of
Barbie and
Oppenheimer. I don't know if they deliberately schedule movies so they all end at the same time at the end of the day or what, but the size of the crowd leaving was unbelievable—we're talking, like, New York City subway car density. There was a huge bottleneck to get onto the down escalator. It was like leaving a popular festival or something. A mainstream movies festival. There is no question I had not seen crowds like this inside a movie theater since well before the pandemic—we're talking, not since 2019 at the most recent. I found it ironic how, when the pandemic happened, seeing spaces so empty felt like
The Twilight Zone, and now that was inverted: seeing a crowd like this felt similarly like we'd entered a new dimension.
I was the only person I saw in our auditorium with a mask on. I saw one or two people in that huge crowd with a mask on. Rather than feel peer pressure not to wear a mask myself, being in a scenario like that only makes me feel more secure in my decision to wear one. I'm happy to have a barrier between my throat and whatever the hell might be getting spewed into the air by countless others.
We walked home together and arrived at home at about 10:15. I was up much later than usual. I even stayed up until about 11:20, finally finishing the Amy Schumer Netflix comedy special, watching on my iPad in bed.
— पाँच हजार चार सौ चौवालीस —
[posted 12:35 pm]
