For nearly nine months I've been teaching every Monday evening and it never bothered me until I moved to Hamburg. There's an independent movie theater in town that has "Monday Mayhem" where they play great movies ranging from Evil Dead to A Christmas Story while I'm out talking about different types of lesion removals. As fun as it is to make a room full of students look at images of butt carbuncles, I wish it didn't interfere with my opportunities to see zombie attacks on the big screen.

Currently I'm on winter break, so I have a few Mondays in a row. The first two weeks there were no movies due to holidays and last week it wasn't anything particularly interesting. This week the marquee read "N A R N I A" and had nothing listed for Monday Mayhem. I shrugged and went to medical coding meeting to catch up with some old colleagues and get roped into speaking at a meeting later in the year.

What a weird life.

After the meeting I rolled into town and when I looked up at the theater, the board had changed. There, in lighted letters, it read, "FRIGHT NIGHT."

I screamed loud enough for a man standing on the street to turn his head. I parked nearby with the intent to take a picture on my cell phone and send it to my internet bestie and see if he died of jealousy. I assumed the movie was for next week's show, but I went inside to double check. Something told me to double check.

When I inquired to the young lady running the counter, she told me that TONIGHT was the showing of Fright Night, but it already started 10 minutes ago. She then informed me that no one else came for the movie, so they would be more than happy to restart it for me.

HOLY HOLY HOLY SHIT!

I had no cash on me, so I literally ran my fat ass down the street to the bank, only to find out it didn't have an outdoor ATM. I then got in my car and flew around the corner to the grocery store, skipped inside and put my card into the ATM. It blinked "Processing...." for five minutes until I just about started to cry. Finally it spit out $20, I put it between my teeth and made my way back to the theater.

I paid $5 for the movie, $2 for a bottle of water, and sat square in the 2nd row so I'd be as close as possible while still having somewhere to put my feet up.


I can't believe I got to see Fright Night on the big screen with THE THEATER COMPLETELY TO MYSELF. I even let out a totally audible fart just for good measure. Plus I was texting people the whole time, and no one was there to say zip to me. Granted, I had to keep my coat on because the theater was cold, but I couldn't very well expect them to jack up the thermostat over one $5 movie goer. It was worth it, the cheesy parts of the movie even more hilarious watching it in the theater.

On my way to the car I turned and saw they'd already changed the sign for next week's showing.