Some More Reasons to Be Afraid of the Dark

A gorgeous Saturday morning: no clouds, a wisp of a breeze, perfect for all your wholesome family-type outdoor recreation needs.

So we decide to go to the movies.

My daughter wants to bring her friend. This is fine. Arrangements are made, starting with my daughter’s clothes. The child is 5 years old.

I pick out an orange and pink ensemble, shorts and a long trapeze top, that my daughter has never worn. The child’s reasoning has always been vague.

“Yuuuck!” she says. “Gross.”

“It will be dark,” say I.

We leave.

But first there is some discussion about who among us is actually going.

The baby is definitely out. I wish that meant asleep , but this being the weekend, her partying gene has already been activated. This leaves my husband and me. The baby-sitter stays home.

It is worth noting here that the movie itself has already been decided: “The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective.”

So you can see that somebody’s going to be really crushed if they have to wait until it comes out on video. Naturally, I am hoping that it will be me.

“So, do you want to go?” my husband says.

“I don’t care,” I say. “You wanna go?” “Uh, sure, I’ll go,” he says. Which I understand quite well.

What my husband is really saying here is, “Yeah, sure. Great. I’ll go.” And, like, I’m supposed to feel guilty or something. But I am not going to fall for it.

“No, that’s OK,” I say. “ I’ll go.”

But he is not falling for it either. We have been married almost nine years. We’ll both go.

Fine.

We go to pick up my daughter’s friend. She is not wearing an adorable pink and orange ensemble lovingly bestowed upon her as a Christmas gift, but rather, a full Ariel. That is, she is covered with images of the Little Mermaid, in the form of a dress.

“Cute dress,” my daughter says to her friend.

Then my daughter shoots me a look . I’m figuring this look is something that she is really going to be perfecting over the years.

We arrive at the theater, along with, oh, thousands of other children and their parents, all of us early, thinking we’ll get “a good seat.”

This is, of course, a laughable notion. Anybody who has ever spent time confined in a darkened theater with children wired on Milk Duds, M&Ms; or any of several varieties of “refreshments” for which the most convenient form of payment is a Visa Gold Card, knows this to be an oxymoron.

Nonetheless, immediately after walking through the doors to the theater lobby, my husband utters the words that millions of other husbands have uttered before him:

“I’ll get the popcorn, you go find the seats.”

Fine .

So I take my daughter and her friend by the hand to secure our seats. Then I notice, amazingly, that the curtains lining the theater walls are the exact same colors as my daughter’s ensemble. I point this out.

“Yeah!” she says. She is very happy. She belongs here. Now she shoots her friend in the Little Mermaid get-up a look .

Then the minutes start ticking by. These are very, very long minutes. Children are bouncing on their seats. Sporadic whining erupts, followed by unintelligible parental hissing. I am relieved to discover that the “ Maaaaa-om “ I hear close up is, this once, not directed at me.

When, finally, my husband returns, I notice that he does not look very “refreshed” after his visit to said counter.

Except I must have looked worse.

“Do you want to see ‘Prince of Tides?’ ” he asks me. “I’ll stay here.”

Well. Who says guilt doesn’t work? Yes, I would like to see “Prince of Tides.” It is playing in the other theater right now, so I don’t have time to waste on polite demurrals. I bolt.

Now there are exactly seven people, including myself, seated ready to watch “Prince.” The theater is dark; it is quiet. This alone is worth the price of admission. I am having very warm thoughts toward my husband.

And after the movie starts, I am thinking it is pretty good too. Aside from the distraction of Barbra Streisand’s ridiculously long fingernails, I am enjoying it.

Then, just at the defining moment of the film, the flashback to end all flashbacks, the theater becomes unnaturally quiet.

At first I think that maybe Nick Nolte is so traumatized by his soul-searching that he’s temporarily lost his voice. Then I’m thinking, “No, only Marcel Marceau could pull this off, and then only maybe .”

Clearly something is wrong. There is no sound. A fellow movie patron goes to complain. She returns. I go and complain some more. Another patron joins us. We return to our seats, thinking it will be any moment now.

Five minutes later, the lady across the aisle yells, “Am I deaf, or what? There is no sound!” The lady’s companion, an elderly gentleman with a cane, appears to be dozing.

The minutes are ticking by. These are very, very long soundless minutes, interrupted only by my forays to the lobby--now filled with thousands of children and their parents eager to see the next showing of “Mouse Detective”--to yell at whomever is most convenient.

Finally, it is announced that the sound will not be returning to “Prince.” The movie is shut off, we get our money back. To this day, I do not know how the movie ends. I am feeling a little, uh, stressed.

So I meet up with my husband, daughter and her friend outside.

“You’re lucky it wasn’t you in there,” I tell my husband, explaining what went on. “ You would have been a nervous wreck.”

Guilt is a lethal weapon. I’m trying to use it less.