This weekend, we celebrated Alysa’s birthday. She decided she’d like to see The Hobbit on opening night at a dine-in theater. We chose the Alamo Drafhouse, where we made reservations a week in advance.
First, the theater. I don’t live anywhere near the Alamo Drafthouse, but it is easily my top choice of movie venue in Kansas City. Even on a cold, rainy day, I will drive half an hour and trudge through the dirty streets from the three-blocks-away free parking garage just to see a movie at this theater. It blends everything you could want from a traditional movie theater (polite, helpful staff, reasonable prices, good food, large screens, comfortable seats) with the quirks and charm of an indie theater (throwback movies, sing-alongs, specially-tailored pre-movie entertainment, large drink selection, theme menus, etc.). And I didn’t even mention the gorgeous building, recliners, and wait staff. Movie theaters are permanently spoiled for me. I will forever walk into normal theaters, flag down any passing employee and demand that he serve me a Guinness shake and refill my popcorn whenever I raise a notecard.
The theater was already pretty full at the time of booking, so we selected four of the only consecutive seats remaining – foolishly choosing to leave a lone aisle seat. Now, the problem in leaving one empty seat is always the slight chance that a stranger sits next to you. There aren’t many positive outcomes in this scenario:
- In the best case, the stranger settles for being split up from his friends and is uncomfortable enough that he leans away and doesn’t bother you.
- Then there’s the scenario in which a couple has two separate seats in the same row and expects everyone to move down to accommodate them. I always imagine myself saying “no!”, they should have planned in advance like we did, but it ends up coming out like “sure!” and then I move.
- If there’s a best case scenario, I suppose there needs to be a worst! So, I don’t know… Maybe a drunk guy, eager for conversation, seemingly stumbles in off the street, smelling of alcohol and carrying a bag of more alcohol.
YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHICH ONE SAT BESIDE US!!!
Alysa and I entered first while Mike and Dustin searched for parking. We determined the seating arrangements and only settled into our seats for a brief peaceful moment before he arrived. With a big smile, he patted us on our backs and shook our hands. He then started up a conversation in which he prattled on endlessly about how he was looking forward to The Hobbit and how he enjoyed the Hobbit-related TV clips that were showing before the previews and wondered how we felt about them. Normal enough. Oh, except that he didn’t speak a single word and instead communicated solely through miming. We’re not sure why he was miming. He mimed the explanation and we didn’t quite get it. We also weren’t sure if we were supposed to mime back, so we sort of mime-talked through our parts of the conversation. We followed his lead and it was mostly pointing and thumbs upping. I gave the Flight of the Concords clip a double thumbs up after I think he asked what I thought of it. (Although, he may have been asking if I had read The Hobbit or telling me he had to go to the bathroom.) After each clip, I turned away and was abruptly tapped on the shoulder so he could ask mime another question. He also gave a lot of “I’m just kidding you” back rubss. It was an uncomfortable amount of stranger touching. I used a lot of hand sanitizer.
When Dustin and Mike arrived, I briefly left to bring them their tickets. During this time, Alysa said she watched the mime pull out a flask and take a swig. He noticed her watching him. He pointed to her with a stern expression and then pointed to the screen. It was essentially a mime threat. “You, keep your eyes on the screen if you know what’s good for you.” When Dustin took the seat beside him, the mime shook his hand and proceeded to mime to us what he thought about all of the previews (or maybe that he hated Leonardo DiCaprio, or that our friend better watch her back. Who knows?). I think he’s hoping the new Superman movie will be good. He ordered a hamburger from the poor, confused waitress and mime-bragged to us once she had left that he had no money. Then he asked Dustin if he could have some of the popcorn that the four of us were sharing. He could not.
He seemed so genuinely excited for the movie before it started. He was equally excited throughout the previews. But mere minutes after the movie began, he was fast asleep. His burger arrived and the waitress didn’t know what to do. She looked to me for help, but I signaled that I didn’t know him. She feebly poked at him and then looked at me again. I mime-swigged from an air flask, which she may or may not have understood, but she left. Pretty soon, he started snoring. None of us were going to complain, of course, because it was better than the shoulder-tapping and thumbs-upping, and because one of us had already been mime-threatened. Someone must have complained, though, because a slew of employees approached him, one at a time, in a comically unsuccessful attempt to wake him. Tapping, shaking, “hey”ing… nothing worked. Eventually, after the snort-snoring began, a manager was able to partially wake him – at least enough to be swatted away. He persisted until the mime’s dazed, drunken eyes were finally open. The manager pointed to the burger that had been sitting on the table for the past hour. The Mime thumbs up thanked him and immediately fell back asleep.
As the credits rolled, we climbed over our seats to bypass the smelly obstruction at the end of our aisle. We left the mime, peacefully snoring in front of a cold, untouched burger, a bag of empty Corona bottles, and an unpaid check. I was only positive of Alysa’s safety once we had closed our car doors. How was The Hobbit? I have no idea.
Update: I later received an email from the Alamo Drafthouse asking me to rate my experience. I told this story in two sentences and they responded by offering us free tickets. All-around win for us! Except for Dustin, who had turned down my hand sanitizer that night.
In subsequent visits, I did notice a new warning that disruptive guests will be removed from the theater. Well done, Alamo Drafthouse. You’ve got a loyal patron in me, though admittedly, you already had me at the Guiness shake.
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