I Do Love A Good Pig

Tonight was just chock-full of fun, mirth and merriment. Especially if you include the Emo People, the Druggies, the Rich and Infamous, and those who have Johnny Depp envy. Yup, you pretty much have my evening in a nutshell.

Or a nuthouse. Whatever works for you.

My job this evening was to count the people who attended the new Alice In Wonderland movie in 3D at the local theater. I counted three different shows, and here is what I noticed about the crowds.

1. Teenagers were largely of the genre dubbed "Emo" by their peers. There was more black eyeliner, black nail polish, black clothing and black hair color than Edgar Allen Poe would ever dream of when he thought of the word RAVEN.

2. Gay men attended this movie in droves.

3. Most people over 60 years of age left the movie saying, "That was just strange." Apparently the artistic content was lost on their age group.

4. People who dressed up as characters in the movie liked to spend the time before the movie outside the doors to the theater so they could be noticed by more people. The Mad Hatter and Alice seemed to be the garb of choice. And no, gender did not matter. (see #6 above)

Across the hall from the theater showing Alice was another theater showing Cop Out. Since I had some time between shows and since Cop Out didn't start for a while, I decided to go into that theater to eat the dinner I'd sneaked in. This theater doesn't allow outside food, but if I'm working I figure I'm entitled to a lunch break with my own food if I eat it away from customers' eyes.

As I sat there downing dinner a man came into the theater and asked if I was with the birthday party. I told him no, and confessed what I was doing. He said he'd rented the entire theater for his son's birthday, and I was welcome to stay if I wanted to watch the movie.

I politely declined, apologized for being there, and left.

Come to find out this guy spent about $1000 for a three-hour rental of a theater that held about 150 people. He and his son were the only ones there because no one else showed up. He'd invited all of his son's friends, but they all had other plans.

Sad.

After I finished counting heads for the last show, I headed out to the car. On the way I passed a crowd that had gathered to watch the two on-duty policemen assigned to the theater who had two teenaged girls on the ground. One was on her stomach with her hands clasped behind her. The other was going through what seemed to be some sort of seizure. I overheard something about "...don't know how many she took.."

Just another night at the movies.