… I got a great reminder of just why yesterday.

Anny had made plans to see the 7:15p Imax 3-D screening of “Avatar” yesterday at the Irvine Spectrum, and it was an enjoyable movie the first time (regular screen, 3-D), so I tagged along, bringing Mr. W and his daughter. Mr. W and I got there first and bought advance tickets, then we had delicious crepes and coffee as we passed the time. Ann then arrived and we got to hang out for the first time in awhile, and we walked around poking into random stores as we chatted, waiting for the movie to start. (Mr. W was generously holding our place in line as he waited for his daughter to arrive.) There was a great sale at Hollister, I was happy to see that the maternity clothing look in women’s fashion appears to be on its way out, but the tops are still super-long. All the shirts would look like dresses on me. Daughter showed up as we returned to the theatre, and we all started the movie in a great mood, marveling at the gigantic screen. The movie was ridiculously crowded. We had one empty seat to our left, and before the show started, that seat was filled. Since the screen is so large, the state-of-the-art theatre had seatbacks that reclined slightly so people can see the whole screen without having to crane their necks to look up.

Halfway through the movie I was ripped out of my Pandora-flying reverie by a pulling against the back of my seat. I waited for whomever was behind me to settle down, except it never really happened. Throughout the rest of the movie, my seatback was pushed, kicked, bumped, moved. And then when I tried to get myself back into my original position of a slight recline, I realized the person behind me had locked up against the back of my seat to where the back absolutely was forced upright and unable to budge whatsoever. I was PISSED. This reminded me of the whole airplane fiasco with childhood friend Sandy, when we flew to New York on a red-eye and two Cheetos munching middle-eastern men behind us refused to let her recline her seat and kept pushing her back up, the one behind her finally locking her seat up with his knees. I pushed back against the seat, it gave a little, and then the jerk locked up tighter and prevented the seat from moving again. And then there were the bumps. Mr. W is over 6′ tall and he said there is no way his knees even came close to touching the back of the seat in front of him, so he didn’t understand how it was possible that someone had to be totally up against the back of my seat and headrest. I pushed back consistently and hard, using my legs on the ground to brace me. So there was this stupid battle going on through the entire second half of the movie. Seeing my body move here and there from being bumped and watching me struggle back, Mr. W turned around a few times but it didn’t stop. After the movie, I told Ann what had been happening, and she turned and said that there it was some chick behind me. WTF! There’s no way she could’ve needed the extra legroom unless she were 7 feet tall, so she must’ve put her feet up against the back of my chair and used it as legrest. What a BITCH. I think people have no business being in public these days with their absolute lack of boundaries and manners. This is why I hate going to the movies.