Coco Before Chanel was playing in the cheap, ghetto theater in Garland this afternoon and I’d been wanting to see it.  So we buzzed over there and caught the 3:20 matinee; we paid a whopping $2.00 for both of us to get in.

On the way to our theater, we walked past some pretty rough looking dudes who were shuffling around near the back theaters.  I wondered if maybe they were just hanging out in the theater because it’s SO COLD outside today.  I mean, that’s why we were there.  But soon we found our theater, we were just a few moments late and caught the tail end of the final preview.  We awkwardly tripped our way through the dark aisles and got seats smack dab in the middle, about halfway back.  Perfect seats.

It was one of the bigger theaters; the screen was about the same size as our entire apartment.  I glanced around and noticed that we were among about ten people watching the film. Another thing I love about the cheap theater, aside from its ghetto creepiness and basically free tickets – there is usually nobody in the movies we go to see.

Just kidding about liking the ghetto creepiness.  I don’t really like that part.  But I am willing to tolerate it for the sake of cheapness.

The movie began, and I noticed with a fair amount of surprise that the opening credits were in French.  For some reason I had thought the movie was in English…Joey didn’t want to see the movie in the first place, and homeboy doesn’t know French.  So I leaned over and whispered, “Sorry, I thought it was in English.  Maybe they’ll subtitle it?”

He assured me it would be just fine.

And shortly we were pleased to discover that there were indeed subtitles.  Except they weren’t positioned properly, so they weren’t showing on the screen.  Nearly impossible to read, but that’s what happens when you pay $1 for your ticket, yes?

About twenty minutes into the film somebody in the back must have done something to fix the titles, because they suddenly were bumped up to a readable place on the screen.  That made the rest of the movie much easier to understand because, honestly, my French just isn’t that good anymore.

So there we sat, shivering half to death (the theater had to be maybe 63 degrees) and trying to figure out what was happening in the film, when in from the back of the theater came a fair amount of ruckus.  Several of the shady dudes I had seen out in the hallway had decided to crash THIS movie, and they stomped, quite literally, down the aisle and discussed amongst themselves where they’d like to sit.

In their normal, everyday voices.

When they finally settled on a spot, there was a lot of commotion; kicking, bags rustling, EXTREMELY LOUD CHEWING, and manly hollering.

I was intensely annoyed, but also midwesternly traumatized because they SCARED ME and of all the seats in the theater, they picked the ones TWO SEATS AWAY FROM ME.

So my heart started racing about as fast as it does whenever I think about riding on an airplane, or that dream I had where Sister crashed us in to Iowa, and I tried to ignore the scary shadies sitting just a popcorn bag’s throw away from us.  It was not easy, Internet.  Not easy.

And then, suddenly, one of them got up and started stomping around again.  I really thought he was coming over towards us, but he turned at the last second and stomped back a couple rows, then went back to where he had been originally sitting.

I decided to try to ignore them.

Although they looked to me like the kind of dudes who might have guns, they also  looked like the kind of dudes who couldn’t afford guns.  So hopefully they didn’t have any, or if they had some I hoped they hadn’t brought them to the theater.  My exit strategy was going to be to yell, “I AM FROM IOWA, LEAVE ME ALONE” if they tried messing with us.

Fortunately that didn’t happen.  And as soon as the credits rolled, I pretty much lit a fire under Joey and told him to get out of here already.

We may have been the first people out of the theater.