{"id":1649,"date":"2016-09-06T14:38:21","date_gmt":"2016-09-06T14:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/?p=1649"},"modified":"2016-09-06T14:38:21","modified_gmt":"2016-09-06T14:38:21","slug":"34-wide-screened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/34-wide-screened\/","title":{"rendered":"#34: Wide Screened"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wide<\/a>
\nSummer is traditionally the peak season for movies, when all the big-budget blockbusters are released, but I don\u2019t go out to the movie theaters as much as I used to.
\nWhy is that, you ask?<\/p>\n


\nWell, to answer your question, now that I have a high-definition, wide-screen television and Home Theater Surround-Sound, sometimes it\u2019s just easier to stay at home and watch a DVD or rent a movie \u2018On Demand.\u2019
\nThink about it\u2026 It\u2019s cheaper\u2026You can pause the movie whenever you want\u2026You can take a break and have a snack\u2026You can take a leak without bothering anyone\u2026 You don\u2019t end-up missing important parts of the movie\u2026 and most important of all, you don\u2019t have to put-up with the other people in the theater.
\nYou see, the last time I went to the movies I had a bad experience.
\nI went to see this big action movie with my girlfriend and there was a woman sitting in my row of seats who was extremely large. I mean, she realistically had to have been pushing upwards of 350-400 lbs.
\nNow God bless her, I\u2019m not judging her\u2026 and, honestly, I kinda felt bad for this woman. Besides, her life choices are really none of my business. Live and let live\u2026
\nBut all I ask in return is to please reciprocate, leave me be, and don\u2019t make MY<\/span> life miserable.<\/em>
\nNot long after the movie started, this woman got up and began making her way down the aisle.
\nI knew she was coming towards me because I could hear people yelling as she stepped on their feet.
\n\u201cOw!\u201d<\/em>
\n \u201cHey! Watch it!\u201d<\/em>
\n \u201cOuch!\u201d<\/em>
\nNow those are very narrow aisles between the seats and it\u2019s tough enough for a normal sized person to get through, but a woman of that size was obviously having some serious difficulty getting by.
\nThen she got to me and tried to cram her enormous body past my seat.
\nI assumed the fetal position and tucked my legs up onto my chair to give her room, but trying to squeeze past me was like trying to jam a meatball into a piggy-bank and the lady somehow got wedged in between me and the seat.
\nI was just trying to watch a movie and she was taking such a long time to get past me, it was like waiting for the Queen Mary to pass by.
\n\u201cExcuse me.\u201d
\n(the ear-splitting blast of a cruise ship\u2019s horn) ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!<\/em>
\n\u201cI\u2019m so sorry.\u201d
\nARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!<\/em>
\nIt took forever for her to struggle past me and her body blotted out my view of the screen so that I couldn\u2019t see the movie.
\nA little while later, I saw her coming back to the seat, covered my mouth and whispered into my girlfriend\u2019s ear, \u201cThis woman is gonna make me miss half the damn movie!\u201d
\nShe whispered back, \u201cRelax, it\u2019s not a big deal.\u201d
\nI said, \u201cYou\u2019re right, it\u2019s not a big deal, it\u2019s more like a total eclipse of the movie screen, and I\u2019m starting to get pissed.\u201d<\/em>
\nShe said softly, \u201cCalm down, Paul.\u201d
\n\u201cCalm down? I paid twelve bucks for my ticket and\u2026 no, wait a second, I paid twenty four bucks<\/em> for these two tickets, and all I want to do is watch the stupid movie without being interrupted. Is that asking too much?\u201d
\nThe woman approached me and said, \u201cExcuse me. May I get by?\u201d
\nI had a couple responses in mind, including\u2026
\n\u201cYou may<\/em><\/span> get by\u2026 but I\u2019m not so sure you can<\/em><\/span> get by.\u201d
\nAnd my personal favorite\u2026
\n\u201cI came here to watch the movie, not the crack of your fat ass every five minutes.\u201d
\nBut I was very polite and respectfully said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry, ma\u2019am, it\u2019s no problem.\u201d
\n\u201cThank you.\u201d
\nARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!<\/em>
\nAgain she got hung-up directly in front of me and it was extremely awkward.
\n\u201cOh, I\u2019m so sorry.\u201d
\nARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!<\/em>
\nShe eventually got by, and I eventually calmed down, and a while later I was really getting into the movie, when it came to the one part that I had been waiting to see.
\nI leaned over and whispered to my girlfriend\u2026
\n\u201cOK, we really need to pay attention now. I heard about this. This scene coming up is the one that everyone has been talking about. It\u2019s supposed to be amazing! You don\u2019t want to miss this.\u201d
\nAnd that\u2019s when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her getting-up from her seat again.
\nI said to myself, \u201cOh no, not now, lady\u2026 Please don\u2019t do this to me!… Awww, here she comes, dammit\u2026 Here we go again.\u201d
\n\u201cExcuse me.\u201d
\n\u201cOuch!\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d
\n\u201cAhhh! My foot!\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cPardon me.\u201d
\n\u201cCareful lady! That hurts!\u201d<\/em>
\nShe eventually reached me\u2026
\n\u201cExcuse me.\u201d
\nUnder my breath I said, \u201cYa, I know the drill,\u201d as I drew my legs back and scrunched myself up as small as I possibly could in my seat to let her go by.
\nARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!<\/em>
\nNow here\u2019s my gripe\u2026
\nWhen this woman started to squeeze her way by me, on the movie screen was a typical family of four, sitting around a typical dinner table, in a typical house, in a typical suburban neighborhood, having a typical family conversation\u2026
\n\u201cHow was your day?\u201d<\/em>
\n \u201cGreat, and yours?\u201d<\/em>
\n \u201cDo you kids have homework to do?\u201d<\/em>
\n \u201cCan you please pass me the butter?\u201d<\/em>
\nThen\u2026
\n(another blast of the mighty ship’s horn) ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!<\/em>
\nAnd, by the time this woman finally was able to make her way past me and I could see the movie screen again, the house was on fire, there were several dead bodies on the front lawn, and a helicopter was shooting rockets at a big, black limousine that was burning rubber as it peeled-off down the street at breakneck speed.
\n\u201cOh no! What the hell just happened? What did I miss?… I can\u2019t believe I just missed everything!\u201d<\/em>
\n\u2026 and THAT\u2019S<\/em><\/span> why I prefer to watch movies at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summer is traditionally the peak season for movies, when all the big-budget blockbusters are released, but I don\u2019t go out to the movie theaters as much as I used to. … Continue reading #34: Wide Screened<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[22,23,24,25,32,69,81,328,329],"class_list":["post-1649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-paul-dangelo","tag-dangelo","tag-comedy","tag-comedian","tag-comic","tag-paul-dangelo-paul-dangelo-comedy","tag-theater","tag-cinema","tag-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p614ww-qB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1649"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1652,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions\/1652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}