Midnight Moon Madness

Let me start by saying I've been sick. I actually took the day off of work on Wednesday which is a major rarity. The kids have also been sick, so my day of rest consisted of laying on the couch with Damien smooshed up next to me and Caliana laying directly on top of me, while they watched Tom and Jerry and Bakugan Battle Brawlers.

I went back to work yesterday even though I was only about 70%. And then last night, Emily and I went with my friend Selena and her stepson to the midnight showing of New Moon. We've had tickets for awhile now and I figured no biggie, I'll sit on my butt in a theater for a little while. That's not strenuous. We knew the shows were sold out so we planned to show up at 10:00 to try and get some decent seats.

We got there at 10 and the line was wrapped around the building and the lobby was already pretty full.




I expected to see more people like me, Mom's with their tweens, but I guess I'm the only irresponsible mom letting her daughter stay out till 3 am on a school night, because the crowd was 93% college girls, and 5% gay men.

We got inside the lobby fairly quickly and it was set up with plastic "ropes" separating the lines weaving back and forth across the lobby.






There were a lot of people, but we knew they were showing it in 9 theaters, so we weren't too worried. After an hour and forty minutes of waiting in line we were 2 partitions from the front and all hell broke loose. Those at the back of the lobby broke down the barriers and rushed the front of the line, which in turn caused everyone who was everywhere else in line to do the same because "oh hell no I did not wait all this time for all of you to just rush in front of me."

The 20 year old kid working the front of the line grabbed his bull horn and screamed "GET BACK, EVERYBODY GET BACK, YOU WILL NOT SEE THIS MOVIE, DO NOT CROSS THE LINES" But the lines were gone, everyone stopped but no one backed up. Emily looked up at me and said "mom, I'm scared"
The lady crammed up behind us said "it's ok, I'm scared too"
They tried to order everyone back into the lines, but no was budging. Humpty Dumpty could not be put together again. Luckily for us we were on the side of the lobby where the front of the line had been and were very near the front, the tide of bloodthirsty girls at our backs. We were allowed past and the race was on. There were 3 theaters open at the moment and it was like the running of the bulls, although we maintained some semblance of dignity and just did a fast walk. We went to the farthest theater and it was fairly full. We spotted four seats together in the second row and grabbed them. Not five minutes later, there were no seats.

Emily and I took a run to the bathroom and getting back was insane. The tide was rushing against us, a hallway packed with bodies...

"there's no seats left!"
"how, that's not fair!"
"Did you check theater 5?"
"Maybe we could sit on the stairs?"

Panicked faces, people rushing rushing everywhere and getting nowhere. I felt like I was on the Titanic and everyone was looking for an empty lifeboat. We tried to get back to our seats as quickly as possible. Selena was saving them for us, but she's pregnant so I didn't want her to have to beat anyone down.

We eventually made it back, abandoned the idea of getting popcorn and settled in for the show. Call me lame, call me easily entertained, call me a woman, I enjoyed it, and so did Em.

Getting out of the parking lot was another matter altogether. I did not enjoy that. Apparently no one has taught the teenage girls in our society about TAKING TURNS. Emily didn't mind though, she was out in no time.