Rolling VIP Style!

We don't go to movies much anymore.  Not "we" as in specifically me-and-Dave, but as a rule, I think that movies are too expensive.  And I think, especially with the recent financial state of the world, many people would agree with me.  It's gotta be something good, possibly epic, to make me shell out $10 to go sit in a cold theater with people who think that paying that $10 entitles them to behave like they're at home (i.e. the woman last summer at Harry Potter who not only answered her phone after the movie had started, but then told the caller, "Well, I'm in the movies right now, but I can talk..."  WHAT?!?!  Let me tell you, the look she got from me shut her up... after a very exasperated "Hold on.  I've got to go outside," to the caller.  What movie theater does she normally go to where people are okay with her talking?!  Remind me not to go there.).  Internationally, however, going to the movies is a whole other experience.  And I do mean EXPERIENCE.  Take the VIP movies at Oakland Mall, here in Guatemala.  I had heard rumors of the gloriousness that is this place.  And I was not disappointed.  Saturday night, some girlfriends and I went to see "The Ugly Truth".  We paid about $9.00USD- standard for a movie ticket.  However, there was nothing standard about this.  First off, you are let into your own lounge through a velvet rope.  The lounge, complete with a bar and separate bathrooms for us VIPers, could rival any (brightly lit) trendy night club.  Once you're let into the theater, you are greeted with huge, comfy, luxurious reclining chairs that are all yours for the next 2 hours or so.  Between each set of chairs is a table with a lamp... so you can read the menu.  A smartly dress waiter will take your order- from sandwiches to sushi, beer to  Bacardi, and rush away to fulfill your every desire... well, food-and-drink-wise.  Then you kick back, snuggle in, and have what is arguably the most comfortable, pampered movie-watching experience of your life.  I will never watch another movie unless it's at the VIP.  It has ruined me for all other theaters.

The one down side of this whole experience is this: After the movie, K.E. says to me, "You know for the first 30 minutes I was completely happy and content.  And then I started to feel like I deserved this chair.  And I wondered where my little pillow was and how come I didn't have a blanket."  And I realized that I felt the same way.  I guess something as simple as two hours in a VIP movie theater can show us how celebs get so high and mighty and think they deserve so much.

I learned a great lesson that night. 

(P.S. I didn't take this picture because it would be rude to take a picture during a movie.  But notice the woman on her phone.  Ain't no thang!  And actually, the theater we were in was a little different- no arm rests between the chairs, just so you can more accurately picture it!)

Happy Birthday Kendra!!!