Katie the Rookie

Apparently Katie hasn't figured out yet that if you take the pictures, we expect a post, and this story is too good to let go to waste. Hopefully she'll still post the pics and/or send them to me because I want copies anyways! :)

Last Friday, Katie, Stephen, Lindsey, and I went to see Lady in the Water. It was opening night, so we bought tickets online and got there an hour early to get our favorite seats in the first row of the stadium seating with the bar to put your feet on. So we sit down, start watching the pre-movie show (since its not a slideshow anymore), talking, etc. The movie is supposed to start at 10:30. 10:28 - The lights come on and the fire alarm starts going off! But this is a talking alarm that says "WARNING! WARNING! AN EMERGENCY HAS BEEN REPORTED!!! PLEASE EXIT THE BUILDING!!" (which Katie hears as "An EXPLOSION has been reported". Definitely gave her a hard time about that one.) So what do we incredibly smart Americans do? Nobody moves. A completely packed theater and we all just sit there, certain its nothing.

Stephen goes out to the lobby to see what is going on and calls us to tell us that they were making everyone evacuate. Do we listen? Nope! Lindsey, Katie, and I refuse to give up our "bar seats." Finally, after about 15 minutes, a security guard comes up to Stephen to tell him he needs to leave, and Stephen's response is "Do you know that Theater 7 is still packed?" (thanks for selling us out Stephen!) So they come in and make us evacuate. We leave our drinks at our seats, put a Mamma Mia playbill over Stephen's seat, and head out. We go out to the lobby and basically wander in circles, never quite making it out the door in hopes that we could still be at the front and get our seats back. We still wanted to see this movie.

Pretty soon, they start handing out the free passes. We are a little upset, but we walk up to a girl to collect our pass. Then we realize that everyone but our girl is taking up the ticket stubs before giving a pass. So we go to someone else to get another with our stubs. Katie can't find hers, so she starts digging through her purse. Then we notice several stubs on the floor. Thrifty Katie starts going around and surreptitiously picking up the extra stubs. All of a sudden, we hear someone call out a name and realizing they were reopening the theater, Lindsey takes off running about 100 miles an hour! She nearly takes out a couple of small children, but who cares? She got our bar seats back! Katie, having been in the middle of a stub pickup when the theater reopened, didn't get in before they posted someone at the door to take up the free passes before entering the theater. A problem for anyone else, but not "25 ticket McBroom"! Katie hands him a stub off the ground and says "I haven't gotten a pass yet!"

So, 1 hour, 10 free movie passes, 2 crying children, and several interesting pictures that we took in the lobby cause we were bored later, we finally got to watch our movie. Some people said it was burned popcorn that caused the alarms to go off, some people said electric fire in the elevator, while still others claimed it was a suspicious package left in the lobby. We'll never know the true cause of our adventure, but I'll always claim the suspicious package because it sounds much more dramatic. :)