Unaccompanied Minors

Dh and I went out on a date last night in (early) celebration of my upcoming 30^th
birthday. We chose last night because a local kids gym, JW Tumbles, offers a babysitting service on Friday nights called Kids Night Out between 5:30-9:30 pm. Since the friends who usually watch the girls for us are due to have a baby any day now, we didn't want to ask them to babysit. So I was pretty excited when I saw this. The price wasn't too bad either. $50 for non-members with 2 kids for the entire night, and they give the kids dinner, snacks, activities, play around in the gym (A. loves the trampoline), and showed a movie. The girls had a GREAT TIME! When I walked them in, they kicked off their shoes and ran into the gym! They didn't look back as I signed them in, and they didn't even think to say good-bye when I told them adios, and left.

The itinerary:

It was actually difficult to think of what I wanted to do on our first evening out without the kids in months. If we do go out without them its usually during the day, so Tucson at night- very foreign to me. I finally decided on dinner (Great Wall China- yeah, I know. There's no of. But that's how they're advertised. Weird, huh?) and a movie (I Am Legend), since they're not things we can do easily and peacefully with the girls in tow.

We had to revise the plan at last minute, though, for several reasons:

I didn't even think about the traffic going each way at 5 pm on a Friday night! We left a little later than we should have, and so were running 15 minutes behind when we went to drop off the girls. With the traffic being what it was, we weren't going to be able to get to the restaurant, order, eat and run to be seated for the movie in time. Something would have to give. I decided we should just head to the mall, see how much time we have and eat at one of the few restaurants in that area. We headed towards Bamboo Asian Bistro to see about the wait. None in the bar area. Fantastic! We grabbed a seat, ordered our drinks and hurriedly figured out what we wanted to order so we were ready by the time the waitress came back to take it. A quick glance at my watch told me it was exactly 6 pm when we sat down. We had 45 minutes to eat, because the movie started at 6:55. Luckily, the restaurant was right outside the theatre, and we didn't have to wait, so it had to work out, right?

Oh, how naïve we were!

Everything appeared as if it were going to go smoothly.

That was, until 6:30 came around and our food was nowhere to be found! Our table hadn't been visited by a waiter/waitress since they dropped off our appetizer (at least we got that!).

Then a waitress, who was not the same one who took our order but sometimes that happens, right?- came to our table with a bill. But she wasn't trying to get us to pay. No sirree. Judging by the credit card sticking out the top, my guess was that the rightful owners of that credit card had already paid and just needed to sign the receipt.

"Here you go, guys," she said with a smile as she held out the black bill putter-inner thingie. "You can just yada yada yada (I forget what else she said because I was trying to figure out how we paid for food we didn't receive, with a credit card that didn't belong to us)"

I looked at her.

"That would be great. But we haven't even received our food." I said.

She lowered the bill thingie and then she began to look confused. "No?"

"No." I replied. But dh saw a great opportunity for us to get the hell out of there right away so we could catch our movie, which would be starting in 10 minutes.

"But, that's okay, actually. If you could just take the meals off of our bill we'll pay for our drinks and appetizer."

Said waitress looked even more confused. Like, what, You don't want to keep waiting for your food. That was ordered over a half hour ago?

"We're kind of in a hurry." He added. More blank staring. "We have some place we need to be. We don't have time to wait anymore."

Finally, the situation seemed to register with the waitress.

"Ok." She said slowly. I'll just go check on that and I'll be right back. I'm so sorry. I hope you're not mad."

"We're not". Assured dh. Speaking for himself.

"I would be," she remarked as she walked away with the bill that wasn't ours. Thanks for sharing...

She disappeared into the back, returned to give the credit card to it's rightful owners (who were caddy corner from us and a table of 4 full of Caucasians, as opposed to our table of two, occupied by one very short Asian looking chick. How she got mixed up? I have no idea.) Minutes later the manager appeared with the new check, minus entrée which had been MIA (missing in action). He apologized and assured us that we would be taken care of if we ever came back. I wondered if he had put some magic code on our receipt so they would know we were supposed to be "taken care" if we ever came back. And then I didn't care. Dh put down cash (Thank God he had cash) and we raced into the theatre.

I had bought our tickets online ahead of time at Fandango.com. A smart thing, because of course the ticket line was super long and we were cutting it very close. We got to go straight to the podium and presented the ticket I printed at home. And then, wham-bam-thank you-ma'am, we were headed towards our theatre.

(Seriously, this is the best way to get your movie tickets. Fandango is a free service.)

We made it with minutes to spare. But, as we suspected, the theatre was packed. All the empty seats were being saved for others.

Except for the seats in the front four rows.

Grrrrrrrrr.

I hemmed and hawed about whether or not I wanted to just cash the tickets in for a pass and do something else, or sit in a front row seat and risk a major neck cramp from trying to watch the movie. I decided to find a seat, watch a few minutes of the previews to see how it felt and decide from there.

I did not realize how big that screen was! We ended up on the end of the third row from the front. A middle seat would actually have been better, but some teeny-boppers had already claimed them.

Double grrrrrrrrr.

Anyways, really big screen, reclining chairs= surprisingly comfortable and pleasant viewing experience.

So we stayed.

What wasn't pleasant, was the slew of teeny-boppers which had converged upon the theatre. You may remember, from my previous confession post, how I feel about teen-agers. Especially unaccompanied teen-agers. Actually, these were more like, pre-teens. None of them looked older than 15. Which really burned me up.

"We're sitting next to teen-agers." I growled to dh while the previews rolled. He patted my leg and smiled. God love him. So I tried to pretend they weren't there. But it was so hard to do because they. Wouldn't. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. (girls by the way. Yeah, I know)

They talked throughout the previews. Then they talked through the opening scene of the movie. And kept on talking for the NEXT HOUR! I know, because I looked at my watch before I finally said something. And when I say they were talking, I mean, softer than normal but louder than whispering. Finally, I leaned over and tapped the girl next to me on the knee.

"Excuse me, but do you guys think you could shut up for the rest of the movie?" I said. I tried to be polite about it. How did I do?

One of them looked at me like I just caught her with a joint in the back of a car with her 18 year old boyfriend.

"Sorry." They said.

Uh, huh.

I returned to reclining position, and then noticed the teeny-bopper boys in the row in front of us started up. I began creating an attack plan. Do I just hit them on the head and tell them to shut up, or do I stand up in my row and shout for all the talkers, particularly the ones under 21, to SHUT UP!?

Lucky for the entire theatre, (and for dh, too, I guess), those boys did shut up a minute later. So I didn't have to unleash my wrath on the entire teeny-bopper population during the rest of the film. Smart kids.

Which reminded me of this other plan I had devised (before we even had kids) about how I would handle letting my kids loose into the world without supervision. I'll share. You may find it useful yourself, one day.

Ghillie suits.

Snipers make ghillie suits in order to blend in with the terrain when they're on a mission.

We could just have a few of our friends trail the girls (secretly of course) while they're oot and aboot, and they could wear ghillie suits so that they're less noticeable. And then when the girls fuck up, they would jump up out of the bushes and start yelling at them like a drill sergeant, shocking and embarrassing them into submission: "Inappropriate behavior! By the power invested in me by your mom and dad, get into that corner right now, young ladies!"

And then they'd take the girls by the arm and escort them to the nearest corner, where the girls will stand with their nose in it- one minute for each year of their age.

Maybe they'd be so embarrassed, they'll mind their p's and q's the next time. If there was to be a next time.

I reminded dh of this plan after the movie. He pointed out one fatal flaw in my plan.

Tucson isn't exactly bush-land. Anyone in a ghillie suit covered with leaves and moss and branches and wearing camo paint on their faces is not likely to blend into an urban environment. They would just look sorta loony. I had thought about that briefly. But not seriously enough, I guess.

Damn.

"Well, what the fuck do we do, now? We can't exactly expect our friends to blend in with light polls and palm trees?!" I asked. He laughed.

I suppose I had my answer. This plan needs a little revising. But I've got at least another 7 years before I have to get it right. But the basic principle remains the same; friends follow, punish infractions, public embarrassment= repentance and proper behavior in the future.

How funny do you think it would be to see a 14 year old girl, all gussied up for a night on the town drinking Jamba Juice and watching PG-13 movies about vampires with her friends, standing with her nose in the corner of a crowded mall?

Pretty fucking funny, I think. But I may just be a sick, sick person. When it comes to unaccompanied minors, however, I stand my ground.

They should have to pass some kind of "acceptable behavior" test before they're unleashed unto the public alone. Much in the way they go about getting driver's licenses. They should go to an etiquette class (don't talk in movie theatre's, don't jump on bed displays in department stores when the clearly placed sign says to stay off the bed, and don't horse around on escalators- especially when other people are riding them). They would then get a permit, and finally take and pass a test before they can go anywhere without a parent or guardian.

Why hasn't anyone thought of that, already?

BTW, good movie, although very different from the book (dh read it a month ago when I am Legend began showing previews and filled me in throughout the weeks we waited for the movie to come out). Still, it was enjoyable and had a great message about the dangers of (even good) science and humanity. I highly recommend it.

All in all, a pleasant night for all of us.