Matinees, Cuticles, and a List

Kindred Spirits
I believe I've mentioned before on this site that I'm cheap. Partly because of that, and partly because I'm a curmudgeonly homebody, we rarely go to the movies. However, I received a gift card for the theater recently, so Katie and I have gone to a couple of movies in the past month. When we do this, though, I make sure that we go to the first showing because it's only $5 apiece, and even though I've got a gift card, I still feel cheated somehow if we don't go to the bargain show (this, by the way, is totally my issue - Kate doesn't think twice about paying full price to go to a movie). Anyway, we decided to go see "Gran Torino" last weekend (which is a pretty powerful movie that makes you laugh, makes you cry, blah, blah, blah) and because I'm cheap and refuse to pay full price, we went to the first showing on Sunday afternoon. Well, as we entered the theater and got in line to buy tickets, I couldn't help but notice that the crowd was on the, shall we say, mature side. As in, we were (by about thirty years) the youngest people in the joint (other than the concessionaires and ticket takers - the typical collection of pimply-faced whippersnappers). Seriously, though, everyone was really old, and I'm sure it wasn't just because we were at the Oro Valley Cineplex. No, I'm going to hypothesize that they (like me) were swayed by the bargain prices. As you might imagine, I wasn't exactly sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, it made me feel kind of old and out of touch - and cheap (but then, I figured hey, I am kind of old and out of touch - and cheap - so what?). On the other hand, it made me feel kind of proud, like I was part of a savvy group who could reminisce about the "good-old-days" when we trudged through snowdrifts for ten miles to get to school and reused tinfoil and turned out the lights when we left the room and knew the value of a dollar (when a dollar had some value). It was like I'd finally found my kindred spirits. But then I noticed that just about every one of my kindred spirits was also buying popcorn before going into the movie ($4 for a small bag, $7.50 for the jumbo) and I was like, people, what's up with that? Four bucks for a bag of popped corn? What happened to smuggling in your snacks? Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway) I was sorely disappointed by their flippant attitudes and wasteful behaviors. But what are you going to do?

A story too weird not to share
As I was skimming through today's paper, a headline about fingernails caught my eye. Apparently, the woman who holds the record for the world's longest fingernails (total length of over 28 feet - the longest single nail 2 feet 11 inches long) was in a car crash. She suffered minor injuries, but her fingernails weren't so fortunate. Paramedics did all they could, but it sounded like they didn't pull through. Bummer for her.

These are a few of my least favorite things
In honor of my 5 a.m. wake-up call this morning, here's a list of ten things I'm tired of (oddly enough, getting up at 5 a.m. is not on the list)
•A. Rod - apparently, he's a cheater (in more than one way), a liar ("Did you ever take performance enhancing drugs?" "No, I did not."), and he's making 100's of millions of dollars to play baseball - and people are still going to be willing to pay him thousands of dollars for his autograph
•Michael Phelps - he's a great swimmer and he did some stupid things - time to move on, media
•Chris Brown - before this week I thought he was annoying - now he's on this list
•Valentine's Day - and it's not until tomorrow - can't we just call the whole thing off?
•Bad attitudes - if you choose your attitude, what does it say when you choose to have a bad one?
•Whiners - why is it that the people who seem to have the most to complain about actually complain the least - and vice-versa?
•Being injured - I seem to be on the mend, so hopefully I can stop whining about this soon
•The elliptical trainer - on the one hand, I'm glad I can still work up a sweat - on the other hand, it's really tedious and boring (and it always makes the bottoms of my feet and the tips of my toes tingle)
•The economy
•People who attempt to be clever by making negative lists

Clearly, I should be thoroughly ashamed of myself, so I'll slap myself silly before slinking off into the sunset. Until next time, may you discover you have many things in common with your kindred spirits, may your fingernails grow quickly, and may any hypocritical tendencies you might be harboring confine themselves to private quarters.