A Day in the Life of a Moviegoer

By: Jeff Lagasse

9:30 a.m. I peel myself from bed with a spatula and stumble over to the kitchen table, where the paper sits waiting to be read. I flip to Entertainment to check out showtimes for the movies at Hoyts. My Pop-Tarts are so old they taste like a wet sock, but I hardly notice. I'm excited.

Noon. With another meal comes another milestone in my moviegoing saga: I call a friend to go see the movie with. The only people who go to the movies alone are bus drivers and people who go to work for fifteen hours in a small dark room.

3:30 p.m. With a lot of time on my hands (time that could be killed doing homework, but come on, let's be serious), I go online and start reading reviews about the movie I want to see. I figure I'll spend my afternoon completely ruining the movie experience by immersing myself in every possible aspect of its affect on pop culture.

5:30 p.m. Another meal, but no movie milestone. Fast forward to seven.

7:00 p.m. I go pick up the friend I'm seeing the movie with. They come out of their house wearing a hat and T-shirt with the movie logo on it, so I know they've been spending their afternoon the same way I have. They get in the car and we go to Hoyts.

7:15 p.m. We arrive five minutes before showtime and get in line. In front of us, an eight-year old is staring at a poster advertising the latest Disney movie. This eight-year old is picking his nose. We wait.

7:17 p.m. We finally get to the head of the line, where a guy with an amateurish mustache and a lazy eye asks us to hand over our life savings. My jaw drops to the floor when he tells me the ticket price, and in stunned silence I dig in my wallet and fork over my hard-earned money. We get our tickets, then we

take a loan from the bank so we can buy concessions.

7:20 p.m. We make it to the cinema just in time for the start of the movie. Bruce Willis appears onscreen, and he is squinting his eyes and talking in a forced whisper. I'm amazed at what a stretch this is for Willis.

9:40 p.m. Having eaten up all of the pre-movie hype with a spoon, we come out of the theater feeling completely let down. We do, however, take pride in the fact that we look really cool wearing clothes with the movie logo on it.

11:35 p.m. I watch the Tonight Show. Jay Leno starts talking about how the movie I went to see is doing really horribly at the box office. I start to regret depleting my savings to go see it.

Noon the next day. The friend I went to the movie with calls and says there's going to be a Flagship Cinema opening soon, with reduced ticket prices. I get on my knees and start saying Hail Marys.

12:05 p.m. I check out showtimes for the movies. I just won the lottery, and I figure the next movie I see can't be half as bad.