POSSUMS AND POPCORN

Monday night, Will and I went and saw The Bucket List. If you haven’t seen it, you need to. It’s a great movie with a great message.

Ok, back up…first I need to tell you that Will has obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Don’t worry about him being embarrassed that I told you this because he is in absolute DENIAL! He has never talked to a doctor about it, but I am telling y’all…he definitely has it! The things he does…that is a whole separate blog in and of itself.

We made it to the theater last night with about 15 minutes to go before the movie. Will thinks it is an absolute sin not to get the biggest popcorn and the biggest drink possible at the movies. Oh, and he can not have ANY ice in his drinks so we always have to discuss this with every cashier. Will: “I want coke, no ice.” Cashier: “But, the coke is warm. Don’t you want just a little ice?” Will: “I do not want ANY ice.” Cashier: Ooookaaaayyyy? (cashier gives look that says, “this guy is a weirdo” and then I always confirm it to him/her verbally).

We made it through all this and then it was receipt and change time. People, this is a huge deal to Will. He will not, under any circumstances, walk away from the counter until his receipt and change have been put away in an organized manner in his wallet. He just will not do it. I was like, “Will, can you do that in the movie? It is about to start.” Will: “No, I’ve almost got it done…just let me make sure all the president’s heads are facing the same way and the bills are in order from smallest to largest. Then, I need to place the receipts in such a way that they can be folded neatly.” Aaaaargggghhh!!!!

Made it into the movie….tried to sit down…kept being met with some resistance that would bump me back up. Finally realized that it was Will doing his “pre-sit dance”. This involves moving his wallet to each pocket to see which feels the best, then the keys to each pocket, then pulls the bottom of his jeans down and his socks up 3 times each and then does this little butt shaking thing which I think is his attempt to be sure his underwear is not up his rear.

So each time I would go to sit, he would bump my hip during this ritual and I would pop back up. Finally, exasperated, I yelled out, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” He yelled back, “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I’M TRYING TO SIT DOWN!” I was like, “I AM THE ONE TRYING TO SIT DOWN AND YOU ARE CRAZY AS ALL GET OUT! NOW MOVE!”

Sat down finally and both of us gave the other an eye roll and commenced to eating the popcorn. I always beg Will to let us each get our own small bag of popcorn because I can not stand to share popcorn with him. But no, he has to get the biggest 5 gallon bucket of popcorn they have and we always, always, always throw more than half of it in the trash.

When he eats popcorn, his eating hand does not stay still more than half a second…bag, mouth, bag, mouth. I don’t know how he breathes! So he starts digging into the popcorn and I am like, “Slow down! There is plenty.” He wants to know what I am talking about so I do a demonstration. The problem is that I am a slow eater so my attempts to eat like he does left me with popcorn all over my shirt after it fell out of my mouth and now he was telling me that I was the crazy one.

We commenced to eating popcorn again and then he just started hysterically laughing. I’m talking, tears, can’t breathe, turning blue, kind of laughing. I was like, “Have you finally lost what was left of your mind? What is wrong with you?!” All he could do was laugh in response so I told him, “Move down a few seats. I don’t want people thinking I am with you! They are going to think you are on drugs!” There were only 6 other people in the theatre so they could hear everything we were saying. I’m sure they thought we were both on drugs.

He finally caught his breath and told me that he was laughing because from the time we walked in we were acting as if we were Doug and Carrie from King of Queens. So, then he got me laughing and that was it.

I guess I leaned my head back without meaning to. When I did, I noticed that there were two HUGE holes right above our heads. Then, I got it in my mind that either roaches, rats, or possums were going to fall on our heads as soon as the lights went out. Yes…possums…who hasn’t heard my possum story?

You gotta hear it….about 5 years ago, Will and I lived in a rental house. The master bedroom had a bathroom in it that was not finished. We kept the door to it shut and used it as a storage room. One night, both of us fell asleep and then heard a huge crash in that room. Being the scaredy cat that I am, I about lost my mind.

Will jumped up, wearing only his underwear, and opened the bathroom door. Then, he told me that a possum had fallen through the roof.

Of course, I didn’t believe him and had to see for myself. So he cracked the door and there was this possum standing on its back legs, snarling its teeth at me, making a crazy noise, and bleeding from falling on our storage. I screamed hysterically and jumped back on the bed.

Will stood on top of a cooler and poked at the terrified thing with a rake trying to get it to run outside. All the while, he was still only wearing his underwear and he reminded me of a character from Lord of the Flies….you know the one about the deserted boys we had to read in middle school?

The possum didn’t care what Will did to him. He wasn’t leaving. Finally, Will gave up and decided that we would just go back to sleep and maybe it would crawl back through the hole in which it fell.

So, we shut the bathroom door, turned out the lights, and laid down. That thing went berserk! It was running all over that room and bouncing off the walls and having a fit. I couldn’t take it. I got the idea to build a tunnel and get the possum to run through it. (Yes, Will, it was my idea, so don’t even try to take credit for it like you always do.) So, there we were in the middle of the night taking all of our dresser drawers out and lining them up. Then, we put blankets on the top of them so he couldn’t jump out. We made a tunnel all the way out the door. It worked! He ran right through it and out the door. We couldn’t go back to sleep for wondering if people would ever believe that really happened to us.

Anyway, back to the movie…I was seriously alarmed that something was going to fall on my head. And, like I said, possums do fall through roofs. So, as much as I enjoyed the movie, I kept looking up every few minutes to see if anything was falling on me. And, during the movie, I kept whispering to Will who was ignoring my very valid concerns at having roaches, rats, or possums fall on me! Next time we go to that particular place, I will just wear his Steelers football helmet for protection and see if he ignores me then!

After the movie, we decided we would get dessert. I wanted to go to Applebee’s and he was like, “You don’t want to go there. You just think you do.” Do you know how infuriating that statement is??? I was like, “NO, I want to go there! Me and Hannah (my niece) shared a very good brownie from there once and I would like that.” (Remember that Hannah? That was where the lady gave you the balloon you loved so much.)

But, no, he still felt that I did not want to go there and informed me that he wanted to go to Wendy’s and get a frosty. My response? You guessed it! “No, you don’t. You just think you do.” We ended up just coming home, both pouting.

As we were pulling into the driveway, I noticed the big dipper. I said, “You know it always amazes me that those are the very same stars I used to look at during my childhood.” In what I perceived as a sarcastic tone, his response was, “Well, actually, they have been there longer than your childhood and will be there well after we die.”

I called him an airhead. Hey, I couldn’t think of anything better. Then we stared at each other a second, daring the other to say anything else…..and, of course, we laughed and called it a night. We are weird that way.