I Want to See My Friend

Brain Tail and I had been planning to meet since Chris Carter announced plans to film the second movie in the X-Files series. God Bless Brain Tail, she did all the foot work; decided upon a date, determined the half way point, found a theatre, googled showing times, and established the location of the closest Starbucks.

I offered to bring Shiner Bock.

Decisions were made, plans were finalized. We would reach our destination at 10am so we could lounge over Starbucks coffee and do some immediate catch up. We would then catch the ultra-early 11:15 am show so that we could lunch casually and then dissect the movie. After which, I would transfer all the Shiner Bock I purchased into her car and we would go our separate ways – me to Rhode Island, she home. Flawless.

Saturday dawned bright and fine. A three hour drive was nothing, a walk in the park, a jaunt, a delight ~ splendid ~ if you will. I walked my dog, checked my email, made a pot of coffee, showered, lightly packed a bag, curled up with my daughter and kissed her goodbye. The gas tank was full, I had water in the front seat, the GPS was turned on, and back up mapquest directions were at hand. I glanced at the printed directions; lo and behold, my end of the drive was 3 hours 59 minutes. The first time I looked at them, all I saw was the 3 hours part. Well, crap. That meant I wasn’t going to get there in time for coffee and a chat, I was going to get to the theatre just in time to sit down and watch the movie.

Maybe I could make up time.

Nope, didn’t work. For the first hour, I got stuck behind someone I am convinced practiced rigid hypermiling techniques while I was determined to practice aggressive driving methods. Then I discovered that Pennsylvania is STILL making improvements to I-81N. In my 30 year experience, I-81 north and south has always been under construction. I’m told by my Uncle that for the 30 years before that it was under construction too. Whatever…it was putting me behind. I get a call from my friend who of all things left early and reached our destination at 9:30am. Well, crap again. I wasn’t going to get there much before 11am.

I got there just in time to get tickets and find seats; there really wasn’t a line at 11:00 am. We were two of about six people in the theatre. You know, if you were a diehard fan back in the day, it would really have been fun to sit in a crowd with other back-in-the-day-diehard fans. The shout outs to the fans were not too in your face and fun. Made us want to clap and shout “wooooo” which would have been ridiculous given the number of people in the theater. We left after all the credits stopped rolling.

I didn’t expect the film to overwhelm me with cinematic excellence. I was going because I had invested 9 years in the characters. I invested some amount of money in seasons 1-6 on DVD (blech – 7 – 9 – just blech). But mostly because I had invested years of friendship in the little Brain Tail friend I have.

Movie, lunch, catch-up, laughter, Starbucks, more laughter. A perfect day so far.

Next up: I Want to Believe