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In general – I’d say about 95% of time – I run into nice people. Decent people. People who like people. Yeah there are some roadragers (is that a word?) and cranky people out there – but one on one, face to face, you usually get nice. Am I right? Am I delusional? I don’t think so. That’s why I was so shocked at a little episode we had yesterday. Let me share.

Because my husband and I are 90 and can’t stay up too late, we tend to go to a Sunday morning matinée to get our movie on. This also works because my teen and tween sleep the morning away and we make it home in time to all have an early lunch together. I love an early lunch. There are lots of other pluses to this scenario. Less crowds. Cheaper tickets. Older audiences. We love it all.

So yesterday we decided to sneak away and see Birdman. We made it there in the nick of time, got our tickets and ran to the theater. To our shock and awe – it was packed. Really packed. Friday night showing packed. My husband spotted two seats and we made our way. There were two couples separated by the open spots we wanted. We asked both couples if the seats were taken and one of them said instantly,”nope all yours.” The husband in the other couple said nothing, but the wife said,”they’re taken.” Okey dokey then. We moved on. We found seats a couple of rows behind them.

As the previews started we noticed more couples trying to find seats. They went through the same interaction with those couples as we did – and they were both turned away the same way.

The movie started. My husband leaned over and said,”there’s no one sitting in those seats. No one is coming. She lied.”

He was right. She basically just didn’t want anyone sitting there. Not a big deal right? Wrong. It takes me about two seconds to go through my emotions when this stuff happens. Disgust, anger, annoyance, and then finally, acceptance of the fact that they are not nice people. Or maybe they have some sitting-next-to-strangers disorder. Whatever. This is not the case with my husband, who is bothered to his very core, his very soul about the injustice. He grapples with their entitlement, he struggles with their complete lack of empathy for other movie goers. He’s upset. And he stays upset.

It doesn’t help that the movie is dark and sad. It doesn’t help that we have a clear sight view of this selfish couple, or that he knows the other folks turned away had to sit in the very front. Their movie going experience all but destroyed (not really).

The movie ends. He turns to me and says,” What did you think? That was great right? Oh, I’m going to say something to that couple. They should know that we know.”

In the early stages of my marriage I would have tried to talk him out of this, explained that we needed to be the bigger person etc. All that talk would have incited him even more. The other thing the talk would have done is to get him angry at me too, how could I not understand how horrible these people were? How could I not see he was right? Now, 18 years in, I say nothing. I say not one word. If he wants to say something, by all means, go for it. He is right. Some people should be called out, no matter how much of a scene it would make.

So I watched him go down the aisle, pass the couple and keep moving. When we got outside I asked him why he changed his mind, he said,” eh, some people.”

Some people indeed.

Hope you had a good weekend!