The Flick
Act 2 Scene 1
Sam
- so the next day we all went to see a movie. I mean minus my brother and his
girlfriend. Wife. We went to this huge like multiplex outside of Bridgeport. It
was the new Daniel Craig thing - It was okay. It was okay. Anyway . On the
way there I stopped at this Mexican takeout place that I read about online. It’s
like this famous Bridgeport tamale place. And then… I brought the tamales
into the theatre.
I know. I know. This is the point of - I know. But we were in a huge hurry and I
didn’t want to eat them in my aunt’s cause she has this like pristine fucking
Passat that she’s all obsessive about and I wanted to like you know you know
pour the little cups of red and green salsa all over the tamales etcetera etcetera.
So I decide to bring the bag of the tamales with me into the movie theatre. But
then then we can’t nd parking and we’re you know late and there’s a weirdly
long line for tickets. And we don’t actually sit down in the theatre until halfway
though the previews. So after we sit out I open my like styrofoam container and
get a few delicious bites of tamale before the movie starts. But then I put it away
because I’m like you know philosophically opposed to rustling your plastic bags
and like squeaking your styrofoam containers during the actual movie. So I put
the tamales back in the plastic bag and I put the plastic bag on the oor. And
we’re like ve minutes into the movie when this woman comes like uh like
waddling down the aisle into the theatre. And this is gonna sound horrible but
she’s uh… she’s like really really smelly. Like one of the smelliest people I’ve
ever… uh, smelled. Like she’s not homeless or anything, it’s not like the
homeless pee smell, it’s more like a… a kind of like… it’s kind of like a chunky
cheesy kind of smell? And she sits right in front of us. And I am… I am like
incredibly sensitive to people’s smells. When I was a kid my dad had this friend who
had halitosis and I couldn’t even like be in the same room as him. Anyway, this
lady sits down right in front of us and her cheesy smell keeps coming at me in
like waves and I can’t focus on the movies and I start going crazy. And my mom
and I are whispering about it and then we convince my dad and my aunt and
my cousins that we should move seats. And so we all get up like a bunch of
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assholes and move ve rows back. The point is that I was so freaked out by not
being able to pay attention to Daniel Craig and getting away from the smelly
woman that I totally forgot all about the tamales. And then we watch the movie
and then it ends and the credits are rolling. And we’re collecting our things and
getting ready to go when I notice these middle-aged ladies ve rows in front of
me, not the smelly lady, the ladies who were sitting to the left us originally, and
they’re all getting ready to go.
And they start walking towards the aisle and then one of them goes, “Linda, are
these yours?” And the other one goes, “No Trish, are they yours?” And Trish or
whoever is like, “No I didn’t bring anything in.” And I look and I see they’re
holding up my bag of tamales.
And then I realise: I’m that douchebag.
I’m that douchebag who brings like random weird ethnic food into a movie
theatre and then forgets about it and leaves it there!
I am my own worst nightmare!
And I sit there paralysed, watching them ask each other, is this yours? is this
yours? And I’m too scared to say anything and then eventually Linda or
whoever just takes the bad and they all walk up the aisle together and when they
get to the doors she throws it in the trash.
She throws it away for me.
That’s the story.
It’s like I was dead or something. I was watching the world like go on without
me.
It all made more sense in my head.
Pause
It was like a really good story in my head.
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