Les Miserables -- A Fitting Description of My Night at the Movies

So The Mr. and I finally got a chance to see Les Miserables.  I loved it!  And, yes, I cried through a majority of the movie.  But the content of the movie was only part of the reason why I was crying.  Let me explain:

We took our seats on the very top row, leaving open the customary one empty seat between us and the people seated on either side of us.  It wasn't long, though, before the theatre was filling to capacity and a guy asked if we could slide down one seat so he and his wife could sit together in the remaining two chairs.  The Mr. and I obliged him and each shuffled down one chair, so I was now sitting right next to a strange woman.  (Okay, what I mean by that is she was a stranger, AND a woman.)

We had just gotten settled when another woman in front of me turned around, and in a HARSH voice said to me, "Will you please stop kicking the back of my chair!"  Feeling very embarrassed to be scolded in public I quietly replied, "Oh, I'm sorry.  I didn't know I was."  The woman beside me rolled her eyes and said to me -- loud enough for the woman in front to hear -- "I'm pretty sure neither of us were kicking her.  She must be imagining things."

I chose not to respond, hoping that this last comment didn't add any fuel to the fire.

It wasn't long before the previews were over and the announcements came on to turn off our cellphones, and to "please refrain from kicking the seat of the person in front of you."  To this the woman next to me laughed and loudly said, "You can still throw popcorn, though.  They didn't say anything about that."

I wanted to die.  I am not a confrontational person, and the last thing I wanted was to tick off the lady in front of me anymore than she already was.  I decided I needed to come up with a plan to make sure this didn't happen.

My plan:  PLANT YOUR FEET ON THE FLOOR AND DON'T MOVE THEM FOR THE DURATION OF THE ENTIRE MOVIE.  (and keep ignoring the woman next to me.)

For the first hour my plan was working quite well.  I hadn't moved a muscle.  Except for getting a kleenex out of my coat pocket.  But not to worry -- I did it so carefully that I didn't make a sound.  And my feet were still in the same place.  So far so good.

However, shortly into the next hour of the movie, my legs started getting cramps in them.  I was dying to move.  But I didn't.  Not even when the lady in front of me shifted in her chair and bumped my shin.  Repeatedly.  I held my ground and didn't move my feet.  I did NOT want to get yelled at again.

After 2  1/2 hours the movie ended and I was finally able to stand and stretch my legs.  It felt good.  What didn't feel so good was trying to walk down all the stairs (remember we were on the top row).  It felt as if with each step my legs were going to collapse.

Luckily it didn't last very long, and by the time we got home my legs felt fine.

And the red mark on my shin only took 24 hours to fade.

Dixie