a movie, a snack...and the JAWS OF LIFE

when i was fresh out of college (the one year that i actually attended college) i moved into an apartment with my sister, denise. we lived in west palm beach, fl and our apartment was just 5 minutes or so from the mall. and the theatre. we were both single girls at the time. not desperate, lonely girls...but just extremely...picky. about who we went out with. we both had busy daytime jobs, she worked at the chamber of commerce and i worked at a small law firm. ( i later went on to work at a very large law firm, and oh, how i wish i still had contacts there. there were many times in the years to come that i could have used a good lawyer.

on the off chances that a friday night came along and we neither one had a date, we would always go to dino's pizza to grab a bite. of pizza. and go see a movie. it was almost always a chick flick, and at times it could be a little awkward...like the 12 friday nights in a row when we were dateless and went to see robby benson in ice castles.

(i still watch that movie on the occasions i can find it playing...and i still cry, even though i know how it ends.) we would try to go to the early bird movie, while everyone else was still at work, namely, so no one who knew us would see us in a movie theater with our sister on a friday night, but mostly, because we were poor. and we could get into the matinees alot cheaper. which left more money for pizza. and popcorn. and candy.


we had alot of good times, though, seriously. there were many times that we were the ONLY ones sitting in the theatre, and we would be laughing our heads off at something...or in the case of ice castles...crying our eyes out. and there would be no one around to tell us to be quiet or to go blow our noses somewhere else.

a year or two after living together, denise moved to miami, which left me needing a roommate, so a good friend of mine, wanda, moved down to fl from ms., and we shared the apartment that i was living in. and my brother, ray, would come over alot and we all hung out together. one day a guy from clewiston, whom i went to school with, and who just happened to have been the very first "love of my life", keith, came over and we all decided to go catch a movie that afternoon. i don't remember what the movie was, but the funny part was, that keith was wearing a pair of flip flops. you know the kind i'm talking about. the flimsy little $.99 ones that you could get at the drug store or the five and dime.

he had sat through what was probably at least an hour and half long movie. with his feet in the same position, and when he got up to leave, he almost fell flat on his face because one of his flip flops had completely stuck to the floor! in whatever gunk it was that the people who had sat in his chair before him, had left behind. coke, popcorn, melted candy, vomit. i don't know. but whatever it was, it had turned into something resembling super glue. and the little piece of rubber that goes between your big toe and your second toe had ripped apart when he went to lift his foot up. and he came completely out of his shoe..er...flip flop. we were just hysterical with laughter. i was thinking about that day today, because keith's brother, greg, has recently become my friend on facebook. i've been talking alot with him recently, because we are both big FLORIDA GATOR fans.

 anyway, i was sitting here reading something he had written on my facebook wall and it reminded me of keith and the flip flop thing and that brought to mind another funny story. about an incident in a movie theatre. only THANK YOU LORD, it wasn't ME that this happened to! (although i would have loved to have been present to witness it.) this little "embarassing moment" happened to my sister, terri.


she and pickle (her daughter, ashley) had decided to go see a matinee (she was trying to save money by going to the matinees too. so she could also get more snacks.) and they would take along one of pickle's friends, sarah. they stopped off in the lobby so she could splurge with the money she had saved on the matinee and get one of those very large tubs of buttered popcorn, with extra butter. and one of those ginormous diet cokes that come with it when you buy the the very large tub of popcorn..." the SPECIAL," they call it,

and then the girls got their candy and icees...all for the very low price of about $20. the girls walked a little ahead of terri as they went into the very dark theatre. and there were only about 10-15 people in there that had already taken their seats before they had come in, so they could have sat in any of the 200 other seats available. pickle and sarah chose the row that was about halfway up the stairs and they walked down to the middle chairs and sat down in their seats. terri came in behind them, trying to balance her purse, a very large tub of popcorn, with extra butter, and her ginormous diet coke and she did what most normal people do when they have both hands full and they have to sit down. she parked her badonkadonk on the top part of the bottom seat, so that she could slide down and the chair would move into the normal seating position.


but...you know how you know something isn't the way it should be, the second you know that you can't stop what you're about to do?


she knew the very second that her badonkadonk touched the top of the seat and she went to slide down, that something was about to go horribly wrong. there was no BOTTOM to the seat!!! just the frame. someone had completely removed the seat. and you're already getting a visual as to what happened next, aren't you? she went right straight through that hole and the next thing she knew, her badonkadonk was flat on the floor, her knees were at face level...buttery popcorn and diet coke went flying...and pickle and sarah were hysterical with laughter. i imagine the other 10-15 people in there were too! terri was trying to be very discreet about the whole thing, so as not to draw attention to herself. (i'm sure the people that were sitting behind her must have wondered where in the world she went to...to them, it must have looked like it does when the car in front of you has a very short person driving and you can't see their head over the headrest, so it looks like the car is driving itself.) i mean, one minute, she is standing there and the next they can barely see the top of her head!


pickle and sarah were trying to help her get out of the hole the best they could...but they are both tiny little things. plus, it's hard to pull with all your strength when you are laughing so hard. they thought they were going to have to call in the fire and rescue with the jaws of life to get her out of there,

but she finally managed to hold on to both of the chair arms and work her way out. she thought she had been PUNKED by someone. or was on an episode of candid camera. she HAD, however, managed to hold on to the popcorn tub and the now empty diet coke cup...which was a good thing, because once she managed to extricate herself and her badonkadonk, she was able to get free refills. good thing she had splurged for the SPECIAL that day!


price of the movie...$18.50, price of the snacks...$20.00, terri falling through the hole in the seat...PRICELESS!! just ask pickle. or sarah. they still laugh about it to this day!