Rrreeeewwrrr! Kitty scratches!

I went with Kaitlin and her roommate April to see a movie last night. As usual, we enjoyed it--and I don't mean that we sat there stone-faced and enjoyed it internally. We laughed when things were funny, teared up a little bit when things were heartfelt, and swayed to the music when they played the cheesy late-80s love song. To me, that is part of the movie experience. I like to let myself feel what the movie is making me feel.

Well, apparently, some people don't like our method of enjoyment. Now, let me clarify: When Kaitlin laughs, she laughs (which makes me laugh harder, usually), and when--in the film--an engaged man kisses another woman, we're going to emit a "you're in trouble"-toned "oooooooo . . ." but, to my knowledge, there was not a single time in the movie when our enjoyment of the film interfered with others' ability to hear and enjoy the film as well.

But maybe we were wrong, because we got heat for it once the movie was over.

First, let me paint this picture for you. There were probably about 20 or 25 people in the movie theater, so it wasn't super crowded. We had walked in about 5 minutes after the movie had started and gone all the way to the top--the very back row. In the row directly in front of us, there was a blonde woman who looked to be in her mid 40s and a young couple. When we first walked in, the blonde woman had given us a dirty look, like, "How dare you come watch this movie!" but I thought maybe she'd just eaten something sour, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Turns out it was her attitude that was sour.

When the movie ended, the guy that was part of the couple looked back at us and stared till we made eye contact. Apparently he had turned back a couple of times during the movie, so Kaitlin suspected he might be upset with us. After he caught our attention, he said, "Y'all were really loud," to which we apologized as kindly as we could--maybe we were being louder than we thought we were. I felt genuine remorse for about half a second, but what happened next just shocked me. The middle-aged woman said to us--over her shoulder as she was walking away, without the decency to look us in the eyes--"Yeah, next time bring your mommy with you so she can tell you when to shut up."

Our jaws dropped. April leaned over to me and commented that her panties must have been in a wad, Kaitlin teared up a little, and my face flushed. If you know me at all, you know that I don't blush because I don't ever get embarrassed, but I could feel myself turn red--I'm still not sure if it was out of embarrassment, anger, shock, or what. All I know is that I have never been spoken to in that way by an adult, and I'm having trouble recalling any similar incidents from middle school, even. I'm pretty sure that, no matter how loud we were, that comment was completely uncalled for.

I fumbled through a lame response about how if she wanted to watch a movie with my mama, she could pay to fly her out from North Carolina.  . . . I am no good at trash talk, so it was pretty flimsy, but mostly I wanted to just point out that we were not some kind of boisterous teenagers seeking to be obnoxious, but that we were adults too. Sure, we're young adults, but at least our panties were in their proper configuration.

Sometime during all of this commotion, I felt something hit my head. Now, keep in mind, we're in the very back row, so it couldn't have just been dropped on my head by someone behind me. I felt the back of my head, and I found a prize in my hair--a piece of chewed up, still soft and fresh enough to smell, obviously thrown our way by someone who wasn't happy with us, chewing gum. That's right, chewing gum. Lucky for me, I hadn't leaned back and gotten it stuck even more in my hair, because it came out fairly easily. And lucky for whoever threw it, I didn't see him or her do it; had I seen it happen, I may have tried to pull out more of my terrible trash talk and just embarrassed all of us even more.

My feelings were a little hurt, but I'm trying not to let it get to me. I just hope the next time we go to a movie, we are surrounded by people who can at least enjoy our enjoyment.