Wow, we were finally going to have a date night like a couple newly dating. A night at the movies! I could hardly contain my excitement to see “The Post”, the new movie with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. Not wanting to be late, we planned to leave an hour early to arrive well in advance to secure our tickets.
We stood in line patiently to get our movie tickets. Finally, our turn came. Arriving a good 30 minutes ahead of time for the afternoon matinee, I knew we’d have no problem getting tickets and good seats.
“We’ll take two tickets for The Post.”
“The only seats left available are in the front row.”
With this, she showed us a map of the theater and pointed to the green boxes.
What? I didn’t understand. Since when did going to the movies become like attending a professional sporting event? She stood looking at us, waiting for a response.
It was then that Bryon and I realized that the last time we had gone to the movies at a proper theater was over two years ago. You see, here in our small mountain town of Nederland, we don’t have a movie theater. We do have a Community Center where on occasion they show movies that not quite new, and you pay six dollars to watch in the comfort of a room meant for meetings instead of movies.
But, going to the movies in a movie theater? Not so much. We’d bought movie coupons at Costco that I’d been carrying around for over a year. But, most week nights, all we wanted to do was eat and go to bed. And then on weekends, it’s hard to mentally pscyhe yourself up and drive “down the hill” to Boulder, especially for Bryon when he does that all week long commuting to work. And so in lieu of going to the movies, we instead watched movies on Amazon or rented from the local Redbox machine here in Nederland.
After getting turned down, we decided to get tickets for Monday instead, since we were coming down to Broomfield anyway for a doctor’s appointment. As soon as we walked in the theater, we realized it wasn’t just the reservation system that had changed.
The seats were huge and cushy, more like pairs of recliners grouped together. Wow, I could fall asleep and take a nap in these! And then I realized the man next to me had his feet up, and found the magic control button next to me. A push to the back not only raised a foot rest, but also reclined the seat even further back. Afraid that I really might fall asleep, I adjusted it to a more upright position. When had going to the movies become such a luxe experience?
As we headed home, I wondered what other accoutrements have been invented for the benefit of city dwellers.
Such is life in the mountains…
Well you haven’t been to the Back Door theater in a while then. They show first run movies… not the first week they are released, but within a couple of weeks. The chairs are not plastic. They are regular cushioned movie theater seats. You should give it another try sometime.
Barb, you are correct in that we haven’t been in awhile. I’d seen the ads in the Mountain-Ear and thought they were older than that. We’ll have to give it a try again sometime. Thanks for the update!
And the price of admission is only $6. https://thebackdoortheatre.org/