Holiday Ramblings

I’m a fifth grade school teacher and have no kids, so the ideas for blogs have come to a screeching halt. All I’ve done since school let out has been to watch videos and gain weight. However, I did spend the afternoon with Warren, a sixth grade boy I mentor. Warren has a wonderful life……..........................
if you live in Darfur. He lives in a rundown, 385 square foot apartment with his uneducated, minimum-wage earning mother who was abandoned by her felonious boyfriend who left her with Warren and a black eye.

I took Warren to the movie theater, and we didn’t go to the dollar theater where I usually go. No sir! We went straight to the top, to the Cineplex 24, with the recliner seats, arm rests with built-in cup holders, a sloped floor so even if a woman with big hair sits in front of you it’s still a great view, a surround sound stereo system, a projector with a brand new light bulb so you can see what’s happening on the screen, and a heater that was turned up so high people were taking their coats off indoors. (There’s nuttin’ quite as heartwarming to the tightwad as the frosty breath of a dollar movie theater audience.)

Halfway through the movie, “Night at the Museum,” the film looked like it caught on fire. I thought for a second that the movie was doin’ a takeoff on the opening of "Ponderosa," the old TV show that opened with a map catching on fire and burning up from the middle out to the edges. Only it wasn’t a takeoff of "Ponderosa;" The film had really burnt up, or melted, or mutated into a quivering blob of plastic goo. A teenager came in and informed the audience that the projector would be fixed and the movie would start again in a few minutes, but I knew better, so Warren and I headed to another screen.

We watched a few minutes of “Rocky Balboa,” and though it didn’t appear to be a foreign film and there were no subtitles, both of us were having trouble understanding WTF the actors were saying. The main problem with the film was it just wasn’t Warren’s cup o’ tea. I could tell by the way he sat in his seat, so we got up and left.

By this time, the line to give everyone watching “Night at the Museum” a refund or readmission tickets was short. We got in the back of the line and just before it was our turn to get our readmission tickets from the manager, I turned to the last guy in line who was right behind me and whispered, “Watch carefully. You and I are in the back of the line and that means a golden opportunity awaits us. Follow my lead.” I told the manager I didn’t want two tickets for my boy and me. I wanted TWO tickets each: one to finish a movie we didn’t get to finish, and one for our troubles.

She was adamant. “I can’t do that sir. You get just one ticket for each person.”

I said, “But that’s only a ticket for half a movie. We’ve already seen half of it, so we have to come back and watch the first half all over again and THEN get to finish the movie.

“That’s means you owe me. You get to see a movie and a half for the price of just one movie.”

I scowled and said, “Well that makes me an unhappy camper. I spend my time and my gas and the boy and I are just plain disappointed. I’m gonna leave here unhappy with the Cineplex 24. Instead, why don't you give me two tickets for each of us, and I’ll be extolling the greatness of the magnificent Cineplex 24.”

She rolled her eyes and gave me four tickets. The guy behind me was giving the same pitch to her as we walked off.

Warren was disappointed, so I took him to get a hamburger at Fuddrucker’s, arguably the best burger in our fair city. Fuddrucker’s hangs old toys, bikes, and signs from the ceiling and on the wall, and they have an eclectic assortment of statues and motorcycles all over the place. Warren was eating his hamburger in record time, excited about the décor, and making me feel old.

“Look there, Mr. R.! It’s an antique baseball glove! There’s an old, old, wagon. And there’s an antique bicycle.”

Of course I’m older than all the antique toys there. Anyway, Warren then adds, “That bike is an old one like Einstein made. Einstein invented the bike.”

I just had to play school teacher and give Warren a very simplified and succinct explanation of Einstein’s contribution to mathematics and his famous formula E = mc2. However, I left out the latest anti-male propaganda our society uses to emasculate men. I didn’t tell Warren that Mrs. Einstein was really the genius in the family. The man of the family, Albert, was merely the unkempt front man, the shill if you will, for the brains of the operation. This anti-man stuff is getting’ out of control. Last Sunday my wife whispered to me in church, “Say, pass the hermnal.”
But I digress.

Right after I explain that Einstein was a mathematician, not an inventor, Warren says, “Look at that statue of Long John Silver. He has a wooden leg because one of his legs was circumcised.”

I nearly fell out of my chair. I told him that Long John Silver had burnt it badly while deep fat frying a batch o’ fish, and his leg had been amputated, not circumcised.

Warren. I love being around kids, and I’m looking forward to school and the kids who provide me with my blogging ideas.