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Part XVII - Change of Plans
The Feed Bag was a little over a mile from her house and less than half a mile from mine. We got in the car and drove to the movie theater, conveniently located all the way on the other side of the intersection.
I wasn't even going to spend very much on GAS for this.
I don't remember which movie I had planned on seeing. Probably something as unromantic as possible, likely starring Chris Farley or RuPaul or Pikachu. But even at that, I was robbed of the pleasure of sitting through 97 minutes of trite chuckles, and with little warning.
"I don't want to go to a movie."
I had given her fair warning over 45 minutes ealier as we left her house. Now, we were IN the parking lot looking for a space.
"Ummm, why not?"
"Well, because when you go to a movie, you go, you watch it, you leave, and that's that."
"How very astute of you! You didn't DYE your hair blonde, did you?"
Okay so I didn't really say that last line, but I thought it. But the truth was, she was on to me. She was out for action, and Emily's idea of action differed from my idea of action.
Action, Clark style: Jackie Chan versus Velociraptors, with a sweating-bullets fight at the end pitting Chan, armed only with a bucket of ball-bearings and a mink coat, against a demon-possessed Emma Thompson and her legions of dinosaur-riding Leonardo di Caprio clones. You can guess who would win.
Action, Emily style: *shudder* I think it would ruin the story if I revealed what I thought Emily's idea of action is.
"So what DO you want to do?"
"I don't know, you've lived her all your life, you tell me!"
"... ... Umm ... ..."
She was right, I HAD lived there for 14 years, and by golly I'd done everything there is to do in that town, and none of it is going to win us an Olympic hosting bid.
"Well...it's tough for me to think, because I've done most of the stuff already, so it doesn't seem to jump out as fun."
I ran through the options in my head.
Mini-Golf. Ick, expensive, and I might be seen by my peers. Of course, the danger level for this was just as high at the movie theater, but less chance of interaction in a big crowd or a dark room than on an 18-green course.
Go Kart racing. Egads, she'd kill me. No doubt about that one.
Bowling. Aside from the fact that I'm a terrible bowler and generally get tendinitis for a few days afterward, this also had a high visibility factor. We won't even think about the redneckedness of this, either.
...
Well that's about the whole list. Oh wait! There is one more thing, so humiliating that nobody of any import would ever go there and see me, while also absorbing and distracting enough that I could hope to avoid conversation with Emily as much as possible. Perhaps it was worth a venture...
"We could go roller skating?"
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