Life With Boys

While I sit here waiting for web files to transfer I thought I’d relay our trip to the movies on Saturday.

We, like millions of others, took the boys to see Cars. To beat the crowd, we were insightful and bought our tickets online and booked it over to the theater — skipping lunch at home to ensure we got good seats — or at least seats together. Yeah — seems the 11:45 showing wasn’t going to be the sell out of the day. Our pre-planning landed us an entire row (and we’re talking the big center row) all to ourselves.

Now they are hungry. Matt raids the snack bar and comes back looking like the Santa Claus of the concession stand — arms overloaded with all of the movie essentials and a large popcorn for me (you can’t go to the movies and not have popcorn and if I have to share I want the big one). By the time the lights are dimmed we’ve dropped at least one large hunk of hot-dog that is NOT subject to the 10-second rule, figured out that all of the seats in the row fold up and down AND we all have the same soda.

Then we settle in for what promises to be one of the loudest movies I’ve been to in a while (all that car racing noise I don’t like on TV — now in surround sound). The boys are moderately behaved — they try out every seat in the row — but luckily the other 4 families in the theater don’t seem or at least pretend not to notice.

Eventually I move down to the other end of the row to serve as a gate so Matt and I can watch both ends. Not five minutes later Matt wants to know what I did with his wallet. What wallet? Why would I have his wallet?

Now I’m crawling up and down on the floor of the theater checking under seats (they don’t pay me enough for this job). Do you know just how dark it can be on the floor in the theater? No wallet. But at least we were one of the earlier showings that day — I know what a 10 p.m. theater floors looks like (back in the day I worked at the theater too).

Matt’s getting a bit frantic and the kids are well, being kids — even more so with a distracted Mom and Dad. The hunt ensues and Tyler has to pee of course. He and Matt head off before there is an accident.

OK — my turn to peruse the lobby and ask the ever-so-concerned employees (I use this term loosely) if anything has turned up. “Uh, what? A wallet? Are you sure you had it out here?”

Back in I go. Where upon my entry I discover Morgan and his little light-up Elmo shoes doing a little dance — in the very front of the theater — and having a grand ‘ole time I might add.

At this point Matt’s ready to call and cancel the credit cards — it’s been gone 20 minutes now. I ask if we can at least wait until they turn the lights back on. He agrees, but reluctantly.

We get settled again. What I’ve seen of the movie is pretty good — a bit of “Days of Thunder” crossed with “Doc Hollywood” (one of MJ Fox’s best if you ask me — but that is beside the point). Now Morgan has lodged something in the seat — it’s Matt’s wallet.

And of course there is a happy ending for all.