So, okay.

Based on my dear Vilate’s review of Night at the Museum, I went and picked up the Kid for the evening to go see it.

She was totally right, it is totally worth it. Even when you’re crammed into the second row in the only two seats left together in the entire auditorium.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I tried to be proactive and purchase the tickets on Fandango. Which, incidentally, does not give you access to the matinee rate, but by the time I figured that out it was too late.

So I was proactive and I got our tickets, and I went to pick up the Kid, whom I missed hanging out with last week because of the snow, and I have to tell you, there is nothing like the feeling of being hit by a fifty pound cannonball screaming “Mommy!” and throwing himself into your arms.

I think I cried a little. I know I hugged him as tight as I could for at least five minutes.

He pulled his head back and looked at me, and there’s this face, with these huge blue eyes like inches from my own, and he’s just grinning as he’s looking at me. Then he buries his head deep in my neck and I just hug him closer because suddenly I realize…

This boy is my heart.

He is my heart and I can’t even begin to imagine what life would be like without him. And I am so incredibly thankful to events that brought him to me, because he is, truly, a blessing.

But I digress, yet again (though happily). I am easily distracted. Shiny objects, and all that.

So we get to the theater, and I pick up our tickets (feeling incredibly competent till I realize I didn’t get the matinee rate) and we head up to the line for snacks. I drop a cool $15 on “snacks”: one “large” tub of popcorn that’s almost as big as the Kid, two “medium” fruit punches that were possibly big enough to fit me and the Kid INTO, and a bag of Sour Patch Kids.

Due to my lack of listening skills, we wandered the wrong way until realizing it, and by the time we finally found the theater, it was packed.

I’m not kidding. It was PACKED. There was MAYBE five seats scattered through the auditorium, and of course there are none together. I tried seeing if people would move over one (in particular, this grumpy looking old dude with one vacant seat on each side of him) but every time they kept saying someone was sitting there, or whatever.

I wanted to smack them all.

So here we are, with $15 in movie tickets and $15 in snacks, and nowhere to sit. Plus, we’re missing the movie, and I feel like crap because all I wanted to do was take my son out for a fun movie.

So we sit in the aisle. We spread out our food and our coats and stuff and sit on the floor.

It’s not long before the poor teenager that works there wanders over and mentions that she’d like us to sit in seats.

I reply that, yes, I would like that too. And I stay put.

She’s kind of at a loss, and explains further that it is a fire hazard for us to be sitting in the aisle.

I nod gravely and attentively. I can see that this is an issue.

She’s a little flustered because so far I am not getting up and finding a seat, so she explains further that really, we can’t sit there.

I reply that I would love to sit in a seat, if she’d like to find me two that are together, as it seems that every vacant seat in the house “is taken”.

She wanders off and apparently bullies people into moving because five minutes later we have two seats, smack in the middle of the second row, staked out just for us.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I HATE squeezing my ample ass down a row of people. I would much prefer to sit in the aisle, but that’s a fire hazard, so…

Amidst approximately ten “I’m sooo sorry”s (one for each person’s feet I’m stepping on) and uncounted ass bumps into the people in the front row behind my aforementioned ample ass, and we finally plop down into our seats.

Luckily, I have a Kid with me who is pretty much the cutest Kid on the planet:

he’s so cute, it’s sick.

and people were mostly forgiving.

An hour and a half later, populated by uncounted “Mom, what happened to him?” “Why did he say that?” “Mom that was so funny! Did you hear him say that?” and we’re finally able to get out of the theater and into the parking lot, which is pretty much one single sheet of very bumpy ice, and we skate to the car.

His little hand is cold, so I squat down in front of him and take his hands in mine and rub them to warm them up. After a minute he looks up at me and smiles, and it’s the sweetest smile you ever saw, and I swear I felt my heart explode.

Totally worth sitting in the aisle for.