In the spring of 2015 a movie called
Pitch Perfect 2 came out in theaters. It was small film with very few actresses you have probably never heard of in it. The movie is inconsequential to the rest of the story but I like to mention the movie because it creates a certain level of expectation for the rest of the story. So anyway, this movie came out and my wife and I decided we should have a date night. We had just had a kid a few months before and had not really had a chance to go out and be away from the little monster, so movie night it was.
I should also preface this story with a mental image of me. I am average height a little overweight and I have a big bushy beard. While I may look intimidating from far away I am nothing but intimidating when approached. I am shy and sometimes quick to anger but never violent. I should also tell you that we had gone to
Lakewood Towne Center, not
Point Ruston because well in 2015 Point Ruston was not open yet. The other thing to remember is that you choose your seats at the Lakewood Towne center theater s they are all assigned seats. Do you see where this is going yet?
We get to the theater, purchase our snacks and proceed into screen 13 or 16 or something on the far side of the complex. The side that has the other concession stand that is never open. We had bought our tickets in advance because I knew it was a new movie it was probably going to be sold out or really full and I wanted us to be able to sit next to each other, a smart move on my part. We double check our tickets and we are in seats 3 and 4 in row G or F or something. Not exactly in the middle but close enough for government work. We walk to the aisle and start looking at the seats/ Seat 1, 2, and 3 are empty but 4 is being occupied by an older black lady. Not old just older then me, perhaps 40 maybe even younger but old enough to have a teenage daughter. So I do what you are supposed to do in this situation. I said, "Excuse me, I think you're in my seat. we have seat 3 and 4."
She says, "oh really, well those seats are open," and she points to seats 2 and 3.
I look to my wife and we confer and decide we will sit in those seats and hope the people who purchased seats 1 and 2 don't show or it is only one person who purchased one of the two seats. Well guess what happens? That's right they don't show up and we watch the movie in peace. WRONG! They do show up just a few minutes later. They say the same thing to me that I said to the lady. I respond in a slightly different way though.
"Oh, sorry that is my seat there I will just get her to move now." SO i lean over to the lady and I say, "ma'am they are here for their seats so you need to move now because that is my seat."
"How is this your seat?" She asks as she munches on her popcorn and watches the First Look.
"Well right here on my ticket it says I have seat 4 which you are in. So you need to move."
"Honey I'm high right now and I don't want to come down." A phrase I will remember for the res of my life because it was so nonchalant and weird. I did mention she was old enough to have a teenage daughter right? you know how I know that? Because hr teenage daughter was in seat 5, the seat they had actually paid for. This is also when I lost my cool. I may have been a little unkind but I felt it was justified in this case. I responded with, "I don't give a fuck you are in my seat and you need to move."
Guess what? She didn't move she just ignored me and kept watching the damn First Look. So then I had to get up and leave the theater and go to that lost concession stand that was miraculously being staffed by a little teenage girl getting popcorn for two older ladies. I popped up to the front of the line real quick and said, "Can you get someone to help me move a lady out of my seat? She says she is too high right now and doesn't want to come down."
The young girl gets on her walkie asking for a manager or something and I ear one of the two old ladies say, "well it is
legal in Washington now." Soon a little tiny girl about a foot shorter then me and perhaps only half as wide as me walks up with two other employees. I show her my ticket and we walk into the theater. One of the other employees breaks off and walks to the other side of the theater and stands at the end of the row while the little girl and the other employee follow me down to the end where my wife is sitting.
So this next part has only been relayed to me via my wife and the two ladies in seats 1 and 2 so I am not as clear on the details as I am for the rest of the story. I did see the young girl, a shift supervisor I am guessing r even the manager I never even got her name, crouch down and begin to talk to the lady. According to my sources the lady at first played dumb about the assigned seating. Okay I can understand trying to get away with that tactic but that theater has always had assigned seating, or at least even in 2015 it had had it for a while. Then I guess she proceeded to tell this little shift supervisor girl that I beat my wife and I was a bully. Over and over again she told this woman all this nasty stuff about e that I had no idea I had ever done especially not in the 5 minutes i had been sitting next to her before leaving to get a manager.
So eventually the lady, the manager girl, and the ladies daughter get up and leave the theater. I sit down and my wife, and the ladies in seats 1 and 2, proceed to tell me as much as they can about what the lady was saying before the movie starts, surprisingly this all happened in enough time that I sat down and the movie started just a minute later.
Yet the story isn't over. After about 15-20 minutes the lady shows back up and sit down, right next to me! I freaked out and slid as close to my wife as as I could. The lady said nothing to me but she said something to the person on the other side of her that sounded mean. Perhaps I am projecting a little. I am fearful because this sort of thing has never happened to me before but the rest of the movie goes off without a hitch.
As we are leaving the theater I see the lady waiting outside the glass doors. I pause for a second but I just need to go to the bathroom. So I am in the restroom and the whole time I can't stop thinking about what I am going to do if this lady wants to fight me when I get outside. I stayed in the bathroom for a little while psyching myself up for a fight. I was ready. I was pumped. I didn't know if I would punch back or if I would just let her hit me and just curl up in a little ball while she kicked me silly.
I finally got up the courage to leave the bathroom, I was really only in there for bout a minute, and saw that she had left. So I would not be getting in a fight after all but I was ready, sort of. Later in talking to my wife she told me she had had a similar conversation about me getting into a fight and whether I should fight back or not.
So what lesson did we learn today kids? Don't mess with me or I will call management on your ass.