Going to the Drive-In

Last Friday night we decided to go to the drive-in theater. The Owens Theater in Seymour is one of the few left in this area. I never have been able to figure out why a Theater doesn't do well in the city, it is so much fun!

The theater was showing "Ice Age 2" and the kids waited with anticipation all week. We arrived about 30 minutes before the show started; we've driven by the theater hundreds of times and rarely are there very many cars there. As we approached, we could see that the field--yes, it's nothing more than a field--was packed!

The Owens Theater boasts that it's been family owned since the 1910's. As we approached the pay booth, we realized the man at the counter must be the original Mr. Owens. A little, old man was manning the booth and he yelled at us "How many?". Dh pointed to the back of the truck and told him we had 3 kids, 2 adults. Mr. Owens said "how many 5 and under?" Dh said we had 1 under 5 and 2 other kids. Mr. Owens chastised dh because he turned his head away and he couldn't hear him so dh repeated himself. Then Mr. Owens said that kids under 12 were $1 and adults were $5. Dh told him we had 1 kid (dd's friend) under 12 and 3 adults. Mr. Owen said "heh? I can't hear, how many you got?". Dh explained that we had 1 child who was five, one who was 12 and one under 12. Mr. Owens looked at him with a glazed look on his face. I couldn't stand it so I piped in, yelling that we needed to pay for 3 adults and 1 child, but I was all the way over on the other side of the pickup and he couldn't hear a word I was saying. Mr. Owens exasperatedly threw his pickled old hands up in the air and said "I don't know what you got!". I told dh just to give him what we owed and move on before the poor old guy had a stroke so we threw $16 at him and drove off.

Since it was opening night of "Ice Age", we had to park at the very back of the field. Once we got situated and comfortable and got the kids in their positions in lawn chairs, we looked up and realized we could barely make out the characters on the screen. There was nowhere else to go so we hoped that our eyes would adjust.

The girls wanted to go to the concession stand almost immediately so we gave them some money and sent them off. They were back within a few minutes, empty-handed. "The line is too long", they said so they sat down to watch the previews. 15 minutes later they decided they couldn't wait any longer so were back off to get popcorn, nachos, and soda. The movie had started by this time so we hoped it didn't take them too long. About 30 minutes later, the girls finally arrived with armloads of concessions, never mind that the movie was half over. Ds was enjoying it immensely, he could almost make out the wooly mammoths on the screen.

At one point dh looked over at me and said "wanna make out?". I laughed and said "sure" but right then ds fell through the sliding back window of the truck and said he was cold. The last time we went to a drive-in ALONE was 22 years ago when we were in high school.

We had a good time; I think the movie was good. The mammoths were cute, anyway.