Movie-ing On!

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for pot of gold!

I admit I do not go to movies very often.  In fact, the last movie I saw was “UP”. But this summer, without any plans for a cruise or vacation, I decided to use our allocated vacation money to treat the children to a movie or two or three. 

Since “UP” brought down my average monthly salary, I knew to attend movies before 5p.m. on a week day and skip the 3-D version (which stands for Depleting, Depressing, and Debilitating my budget) otherwise I could quickly max out my credit card.  I also knew to stop at Wal-Mart for the prerequisite sugar jolt of candy that I would hide,  sneak, place in my purse in case anyone in the theater had a sudden diabetic emergency…or the movie turned out to be boring and the children started chomping on each other.

The first movie that had the children marking off the days until it opened in theaters was “Monster University.” Opening day and we were off at 3:44 for the not-matinee-and-not-evening showing. “One senior, two children please.”  I held my breath until the credit card flashed “approved.”  Feeling like I now had a little wiggle room in the budget, I thought about splurging and getting popcorn and drinks for the children; that is until I saw the prices.

 $19.95 for a bucket of popcorn and two MEDIUM drinks.  Seasonings were $1.50 extra but salt was only $1.00.  The profit margin must be 99%, the only actual expense being the bucket and the cups.  I bet if they could figure a way, they would have you bring your own sack and just have you stand under the coke spigot with your mouth open for so many seconds.  We skipped the $20 popcorn and cokes.  The movie was cute and funny on so many different levels.

The second movie opening marked on the calendar was “Despicable Me.”  Still working off our cruise vacation budget, I agreed to take them.  I had never seen “Despicable One” but the children said that was ok they would tell me anything I did not understand.  As it turned out, I had to explain why I was laughing so hard to them.  It was a perfect cartoon spoof on all the James Bond super spy movies I had seen.  This movie had the children chomping on the contraband M&M’s half way through.

The third movie was “Turbo.”  I love Dream Works so I was looking forward to this movie.  Remember this is replacing a seven day cruise for four with all gourmet meals, entertainment, continuous soft-serve ice cream, free child care, and constant maid service included.  Getting tickets on line enables you to bypass the trauma of credit card APPROVED and the Snack Bar prices and head straight for the movie theatre.   This was a “formula one” type movie.  The underdog, or in this case the under snail, dreams of winning the big race and does.  It did have a couple of profound philosophical points which went completely over the heads of the children.

With no more must-see movies on our list and a little bit of change left in the vacation fund, we headed for the frozen yogurt store.  Here, in true genius marketing fashion, they do not post their price list.  Instead you fill your cup with as much frozen yogurt as you want and pile on all the candies, toppings, and nuts that you can.  Then, when it is too late to put anything back, they weigh it and charge you by the ounce or in our case, by the pound.

After crunching the numbers, 4 ½ hours of actual movie entertainment, 1 ½ hours of movie advertisements plus M&M’s times three, add in frozen yogurt and future dental appointments, we will definitely get more for our money by btaking a cruise….possibly around the world.