Addie asked me if I liked movies. Or course, who doesn’t like movies. What he meant though was “do you want to go to a movie theater and see a movie with me?” It took us a while to get that worked out. He must have really liked me to struggle through that.
I had never gone to a movie in a theater before I went with Addie. I watch movies on my phone, or sometimes when I have a place to live on a TV that isn’t mine. Never in a giant weird auditorium filled with other people.
When we got into the lobby he asked me what I wanted. There was a kid behind a jewelry display case that had boxes of candy in it. At first that made no sense to me but then I saw that the stuff was all as expensive as jewelry. He paid $35 for bucket of popcorn, a box of candy and two sodas. That’s insane on the face of it. That should easily be 5 meals worth of money. Also, I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve managed to watch hundreds, thousands even, of movies without a box of stale Milk Duds or a bucket of grease.
I hate popcorn. I probably hate it because when I was a kid garbage bags of thrown away popcorn were one of my dietary staples. There was this kid, in Chicago I think, who’d throw the old popcorn into the dumpster behind the theater. I asked him once if he could just give it to me directly instead of having to pull it out of the trash. He said that he would if I sucked his dick. I think I was 12 at the time.
A couple months after that interaction he slipped on the ice when he was walking to the dumpster to throw out the popcorn and hurt his back. While he was down I kicked him a couple times and stole his wallet and keys. I may have also dumped some kind of used fry oil on him. I think about that guy whenever I smell popcorn.
Obviously I don’t get the appeal of movie theaters. But also it seems like a shitty date notwithstanding those feelings. We were sitting next to each other, but we were both just watching a movie and not interacting with each other. You can’t talk because there’s other people there. So what did it even matter that we were there together?
We saw Black Adam, which I didn’t realize is a superhero movie or I would way said no way. You know how I feel about those. I’m not a fan of the Rock either.
After the movie was over he asked me if I had a good time. I told him it was the best date I’d ever been on. I thought it was true because it was the only date I’d ever been on but I’m not sure now. Does walking about a flea market with English Stew count as a date? I don’t know the rules for dating.
I asked him if he wanted to come back to my apartment for a beer. He thought I meant to hook up and got weird. Once I figured that out I explained that I just meant literally drinking a few beers. He said that he doesn’t really drink. After some additional awkward moments in the parking lot we went our separate ways.
Things were off to a strong start.
