Paranormal Activity 2...'ala Kat and Mandy

My daughter and I have come to the conclusion that we can never have a normal, uneventful night out anymore. No matter what we do, we seem to find ourselves in situations worthy of a television sitcom...or reality show where you are constantly looking for the camera and thinking, "this is a joke, right? someone is filming us and making a profit, right???"

Wrong.

For example, her birthday. Never normal. Absolutely positively never. We go for a lemon drop and a port at Old Toad every year. If we are near a Hard Rock Cafe...we go there. But seeing as we are both active stage managers in Rochester (yes, I corrupted her...and she gets paid, so she can't complain), we usually are at the Toad.

Last year, some strange woman sat down at the table and proceeded to tell us her life story...which revolved around farms, hay, chickens and a general lack of knowledge of moving vehicles of any kind.

This year, two young guys, one sensible and perhaps only a beer or two to the wind, the other completely wasted to the point that he would fall asleep mid sentence, sometimes hitting his head on the table. And then wake up and finish his sentence 10 to 15 mins later like no time had passed. He was also quite interested in me. Mandy quickly set him straight while he whispered into my ear in a language that has not yet been written....

"Yeah, that's my Mom. Back off."

We seem to be magnets for the unusual, absurd and downright hysterical evenings out.

Last night was no different.

We decided to go see the midnight show of Paranormal Activity 2.

The crowd at the theater was 90% engaged. The other 10% apparently had 10 bucks they just wanted to throw away, because the entire three front rows were full of loud, obnoxious people with cell phones. And opinions.

Within minutes of the beginning of the movie, it was apparent to both of us that we had just wasted our money because they would not shut up. You have to understand that we tend to be very frugal with our finances (unless it has to do with reefing), and although it was irritating to me, it was completely unbearable to her. She got up and went and got security. Which didn't help. They actually threw popcorn at them. Some of them started playing MP3's on their phones. Meanwhile, Mandy is fuming.

At one point, she went down and stood there and said, "shut the (insert not so nice word) up." And stood there while they insulted her. I'm thinking, "Ok! Phone cue'd to 911." It was actually a tad more scary than the movie.

Finally, a bunch of big guys came in and escorted them (unwillingly) out of the theater and we settled in to have the livin' bejeesus scared outta us.

When the movie was over, Mandy declared, "We are getting our money back."

Understand that when my daughter makes a statement that definitive? It happens.

She went to the manager, who offered us readmission tickets and she replied, "I'm never coming back here again because you guys suck at policing and control."

With that, he took her to the cash register and handed her 20 dollars. We just saw the movie for free.

We took our money, went to LUX for last call, had a beer by the firepit...and some guy comes and sits next to us and starts talking about his favorite books. OUT OF THE BLUE.

We raised our beers to each other,
Mandy says, "Yup. We're out!"

At 2am, the bouncer, and our mutual friend tells everyone to leave. At 215am, he repeats this "request" only a tad firmer. At 230am he comes out and says, "People. It's 230am. Go home." At 235am, he says something I can't type here.

On the way to the car...Mandy realizes she has left her hat (that I made her) at the theater..and also, that there is popcorn in her scarf. Which means when she was being all beetchy at the theater...she had popcorn in her scarf.

We drive back to the theater. Using my cell phone's flash as a beacon...we stand at the door and wave down very tired looking employees. Who actually come to the door. The guy says, "Yeah?" Almost like, "what the heck could possibly be next...." And she explains that she left her hat. He looks at his watch. Then he looks at me and my beacon...and a slight grin comes on his face and he lets her in.

Two minutes later she comes running back like a child in a field of flowers with her hat, skipping and saying, "I got it!"

Too tired theater dude lets her out. We wave goodbye, "thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And we hear him say, "yeah...yeah..."

And as we are driving home, we realize that we just had a highly entertaining evening.

Let me add that today, after rehearsal, we were driving home and Mandy looked in her scarf. Some of her lunch was there.

God, I love that girl.

Ciao'
Kat