"I am soo excited for this!" Shorty squeaked, attempting to keep herself somewhat close to the ground. I mean, she was as a default, but she'd been jumping around like a caffeinated frog for the last few minutes. Her decision to switch from body to verbal communication was prompted by a group of people walking up the sidewalk towards the movie theater. I guess she wanted to look "sane" or something.
I had no such qualms and hopped up on the bench, trying to balance on the back. I fell off. "I'd be more excited if this place wasn't such a cra--"
"Yeah, it's not the best," Shorty interrupted me hastily before any of the kids/teens (that I had completely missed the advent of) could hear the expletive in progress. (Whoops.) "But it's worth it! I mean, Hunger Games!"
I snickered. "Whatever, but next time we're going to St. Joseph. Or KC. Or anywhere that has a theater with actual SEATS."
"What part are you most excited about?"
That one took me a moment. "I want to see how the archery plays out--and if it's factually correct."
Shorty nodded approvingly. We were both archers ourselves, so we could pick out the impossible moves from the possible ones pretty easily. "They'd better stay true to the book."
I shrugged. "Yeah, good luck to that." I nodded to the teens. "Y'all excited?"
"Oh yes!" one of them said excitedly. "It was such a good book!"
"Teens still read?" I muttered incredulously under my breath. They didn't hear me, but Shorty sure did--and kicked me in the shin. That was really all the higher she could get.
"What?" one of the others asked.
"Nothing!" Shorty said hastily. "He was just being goofy!"
He eyed us. "You guys dating?"
We both burst out laughing, which was kind of our default response to such a ludicrous claim. I decided to have a little fun with that this time, though. "Yes, actually--OW!"
Shorty turned bright red and kicked me. Again. "RADAR! No we're not!"
"She just shy about i--OW! Will you stop that?" I demanded, hopping back.
"NO!" she giggled. "You are not dating me!"
The teens were trying to hold back laughter of their own, with varying degrees of success. "Well, you act like you're dating," one of the girls informed us.
I chuckled. "We get that a lot." A thought occurred to me.
Unfortunately, my poker face was slightly less developed than my sense of humor, if such a thing can be believed. Shorty noticed immediately. "What's THAT look for?"
"Huh? Oh, nothing," I said innocently. "What look?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, right. What are you planning?"
"Oh, look, the door's opening!" I said hastily and made a beeline for the portal. Once inside, I promptly walked straight to the cashier and loudly requested two tickets. Shorty kicked me again and immediately paid me back upon our entry to the actual theater, laughing her rear off the entire time.
The movie itself wasn't bad. It stayed fairly true to the book, which I appreciated. However, the book wasn't in my top ten, so I decided to enhance the experience with sarcastic comments. ("They should have brought marshmallows on the cart! They could have had s'mores!" "You call that FIGHTING? I've seen better slap fights!") Shorty probably would have punched me if she hadn't been laughing so hard--and trying so hard to keep it quiet.
She did absolutely lose it at one point though. There was a moment that (I'm sure) was supposed to be very "touching" where the main character's love interest was trying to help her take care of a massive cut on her head. (I won't go into too many spoilers, even though this thing came out YEARS ago.) Anyway, he was being all mushy about it. I had a very low tolerance for mush and could appreciate the stupidity of his first aid attempts, so I leaned over to Shorty--who was wearing her best aww, they're so cute face--and pretended to be the guy, whispering, "Yeah, I love you, so I'm gonna just smear blood all over your face now, 'kay?"
I won't say that anyone was particularly noisy at that moment in time, but someone definitely got a few looks.
We decided to have our traditional post-movie discussion/rant dinner over at Dairy Queen. On the way in, Shorty kept giggling about my "lack of ability to appreciate romance" or something to that effect. I shrugged. "Hey, getting someone's face messy isn't romantic. I prefer the practical romantic guestures."
"Oh, yeah? Like what?" Shorty demanded.
I marched up to the cash register. "Hi! I'd like a bacon cheeseburger, large combo, and a...hmm...Reese's peanut butter cup blizzard. Oh, and whatever Shorty would like. We're together." I turned back to her. "Like that."
"MIDWAY!" Shorty squeaked, then considered it. "Okay, admittedly, I walked right into that one. But we are NOT TOGETHER."
The cashier was looking confused. "So are you on one or not?"
I said "Yes" at the same time Shorty said "NO!" However, she was laughing too hard to properly enunciate, so I won.
She did pay me back for that one, though!
Author's note, part 2: Oh, and she couldn't have been TOO upset about snorting in the theater, since she posted it to Facebook and sent me the archived post when it popped up on her news feed this year.
You're welcome.
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