they call them alarms for a reason. They're alarming...

One of my favorite me time things to do is to go to the movies by myself. (Also, one of my favorite things to do with people is to go to the movies, but I digress.) So yesterday I decided to see 27 Dresses.

I seat myself in what I consider to be a prime location; middle of the third from top row. Added benefit is that there is not a single person around me for miles.

20 minutes in to the movie a man with a bag of popcorn comes in and sits in the row in front of mine, and two seats to my left. I think to myself that it's pretty weird that someone would come to a movie 20 minutes late, but I go back to the movie.
Shortly after, the man is moving around and it catches my attention. I look down and can clearly see that he is wiping tears from his eyes. The current scene was kind of sappy but not worth crying over. I cry at Publix commercials, so, the fact that this grown man was crying and I wasn't, I thought he was kinda wimpy.
But then, a few minutes later I look down again to see this man staring at me. Not glancing up in the way that I had just glanced down to catch him crying, but flat out staring. I gave him a stare back that said "hey creep, turn around", and he did. Then, however, he turned around again. I could see him out of the corner of my eye but I din't want to look down again because an alarm in me started sounding. My heart was beating rapidly. This guy was giving me the biggest creeps of my life. I tried to move my body as far to the right as possible hoping that my body language would speak to him, but he wouldn't stop looking back at me. When I knew he wasn't looking at me, I kept glancing down at him trying to figure out what his deal was because, seriously, I was panicing. This is when I noticed that this guy was still crying. Weeping, actually. Frantically swating the tears off of his face. And moving. He wouldn't stop moving in his seat. And looking back at me. He was getting more and more frantic and started putting the popcorn bag on the right side of his face as if he was trying to block him self from me. Then lifing the bag in the air. Then looking at me. Then wiping his face. Then blocking me with his popcorn bag.
Mean while, evey alarm system in my body was screaming "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM THIS GUY NOW!!" except for this one little part of me. This one little part was saying "Hey guys, this man is crying. Maybe his daughter is really sick in the hopsital or something and he wanted to just go somewhere dark and cry. I think we should move, but lets pretend like we're going to the bathroom and just watch the movie from the little passage way for a few minutes, and then come back and pick a new seat? That way we don't offend him."
But then this much louder part said "If he wanted to cry in peace, why did he choose to sit 2 seats away from you when theres only 5 people in this entire theater?!?! Maybe hes crying because he's a mass murder and hes struggling with the crimes hes committed and upset because he'll never rest until he kills again!! What if, when you get up to prentend to go to the bathroom, he follow you out? WHAT THEN??"
So, I agreed with myself and when the man was in the "covering his face with a bag of popcorn" part of his routine, I quietly got up and shuffled myself to the darkest corner in the top row of the theater. (Which I realize now is kind of like Jamie Lee Curtis running up the stairs when being chased).

Then something happened that chilled me to the core.

I watched the man as he turned around to look at me and saw that I wasn't there. He stood up and turned aroud, looked over his seat onto the floor where I had been sitting, and then left.
I'm fully aware that I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty confident that this man thought I left and then tried to follow me out.

I was seriously thinking things like "Ok, at least I left a message on Amy's voice mail about where and when the movie was if she wanted to meet me here. Someone knows where I'm suposed to be if I don't turn up." Thats how f-ing scared I was.

When the movie was over, I didn't even stand up until the one group of girls in the theater did, and then I walked closely to them to pretend like I was with them. Oh yeah. Then I ran to my car.

Then I checked it to make sure no one was in it.

Thats how f-ing scared I was.




What would you have done? Ever had those alarms?