Waffle at the movies

I went to the movies last night – a 6.30 pm movie.  It was Friday night.  Tony and I used to frequent early Friday evening movies on a regular basis over the years.  We found the routine of meeting up for a movie early Friday evening meant we could unwind together over a pre-movie wine, catch the movie then come out and pick up a cheap dinner somewhere and be all relaxed, having dispelled any work-thinking brain cells and have the entire weekend to look forward to.

We were both working at the time (this is pre-tumour days), so by the time we walked out of the movie all our weekday work mental fatigue had gone – dispersed into the movie ether of either some terrorist being obliterated by a Bruce-Willis-type hero; or a French lady creating romantic-making chocolates; robots taking over the world; or weird black sheep on a killing spree.  Clearly we were open to all forms of ridiculous, spurious fantasy.

In post-tumour diagnosis days we continued as often as possible to maintain the Friday night routine, even though neither of us were working as it was another tradition we had that we maintained to make life as normal as possible.

Consequently we did get to see lots of movies – although in all fairness, we did tend to lean more toward the grown-up genre as transformers, alien and macabre people and creatures killing each other and entire planets did nothing to keep me entertained.  I have always had the fortunate habit of being able to fall deeply asleep throughout the majority of those movies; it would seem I was born with mental switch that enables me to completely block out the horrendous, explosive, world ending noises around me when the brain has gone dead from brain-dead entertainment.

Once Tony passed away there was a dearth of movie attendance as the few times I did go I felt the void by my side so greatly that, no matter the movie, I was unable to overcome the grief of the void -  meaning many of the movies I did go to by myself have also been totally obliterated in the memory banks as the entertainment absorption rate was almost zero.

However, life is moving forward and in the past year I have taken to always browsing the movie reviews in the early part of the week in hopeful anticipation that some reviewer may catch my curious attention by what they have written on a newly released feature.

This means that on most early Friday evenings I can be seen, the lone soul, in the foyer of either the Lido, Capitol or Rialto theatres in town.  They are the theatres that show grown up movies, therefore I don’t have the shuddersome option of queuing with the moronic populous who come armed with many dollars to purchase the expensive tickets, huge buckets of butter-coated popcorn, large bottles of Coke, and several noise-creating bags of potato chips.

      

Oh no, snob that I am, I queue with the fine folk, those old and wrinkled ones who buy the cheap senior citizen rated tickets and purchase either a Kapiti ice cream cone or a nice glass of Pinot Something – which I have witness has put some old sods fast a snoring sleep halfway through a foreign romantic.

Anyway, the purpose of this script it to say that last night I arrived rather early to the movie theatre so purchased a ticket and sat in a comfy lounge chair and people watched for almost an hour.

Without a Kapiti ice cream or Pinot Something.  Me, in my now miserly way, take along my own bottled water.  Bottled from the kitchen tap at home.

Most folk enjoy a relaxing hour or so of people watching at some time, none more so than someone on her own who has little else to do but fathom the lives of others whose heads pop up from an apparent hole in the floor as the escalator pushes the rest of their bodies up to floor level height and they walk toward the movie foyer ticket counter.

When I originally arrived in the movie theatre there were but a handful of folk milling around the bar chatting or standing in front of the notice boards reading reviews and previews of movies.  It was a fairly quiet, dull period with little for people watcher me to see.  By the time my movie was about to start the foyer area was jammed packed with people and the noise level loudly buzzing.

Folk had arrived as individuals meeting other individuals, in couples or in groups.  The longer I watched the more I realised the greater majority of those arriving were of the feminine gender.  Indeed, there was a period when I played the mental game of when would the next male head appear from that hole in the floor; and then, how many women would come up to how many men.

       

Overall, for the period I sat in that foyer I figured the male versus female quotient would have been approximately 30% to 70%.

If you were single, male and randy this would be the ideal place to bring along your basket of upturned bananas.  If at first rejected the populous was such that it would not take long for you to strike lucky.

I digress.  This new-found female-movie-attending phenomena of mine then posed the question, why?  Why so many women and so few men?

Then I figured, as the greater majority  of women in the foyer would have been forty-plus somethings, there must be more men in that age group who had the unfortunate problem of having kicked the bucket.  Result being their widowed wives, were like me, filling in their Friday nights too  …. 

Or  … a more rational reason could have been  …  most of those women did have husbands, at home; husbands who didn’t care what or where the spouse went, so long as he didn’t have to go with them.

Then of course there were the two groups of ladies who looked well into their 60’s, or more, had the appearance of being most intellectual by the manner in which they were discussing previous high brow movies they had been to see – who, I would confidently say – once did have husbands but have since realised they were superfluous to requirements and their enjoyment was in seeking the fellowship of their like minded womanhood.  All power to them.

Irrespective of all the above.  It did remind me of the statistics I had heard on National Radio earlier in the day that females born this year have a greater likelihood of living until they are 81+ years old.  And those boys born this year will now have the happy outlook of living longer than their fathers, or father’s fathers did, and now live to 78+ years of age.  The 3 year age difference of men dying earlier than women has reduced from the 4 years it was predicted sometime in the 1990’s.  The life expectancy gap of male versus female is now closing.

On those statistics, maybe the Rialto foyer, in the year 2095, may have a male-female ratio of 45% to 55%.  And if those statics keep reducing, by the year 2125 it may be 50-50 percent.

Then what would I have think about when sitting in the Riato foyer?   Oh, there’s another quandary for me.

Things improve with age. I’m approaching magnificent.