An Incident I'd Rather Forget

It was my sister’s tenth birthday, and my mom was taking her and a few friends to the movies. I was not only allowed to go as well, but was allowed to bring friend of my own. It was a frigid day in the middle of January, and the renewing feeling of the New Year still hung in the air. My mom was always conscious of trying to save money, and although taking a small group of girls was generous, she did not want to spend a fortune on snack stand candies and drinks from the theatre. Being almost two years older I felt it was my duty to run into the nearby Wal-Mart and grab drinks and a bag of candy which we could sneak into our small purses. My mother dropped my friend and I off at Wal-Mart as she along with my sister and her friends all went to pick up the movie theatre tickets. My friend and I were instructed to wait outside of Wal-Mart until my mom came back for us. That’s at least what I heard her say. The movie was supposed to start at one o’clock and we had been waiting for ten minutes already when we noticed that it was1:05. We were cold and anxious to see the movie and the seven or so bottles of water in addition to the bags of candy were making our arms grow tired. My friend suggested that she thought she heard my mom say that we were supposed to meet her in the theatre. It made sense to me—after all, the movie had already started. We walked across the street and parking lot and as we reached the doors the intoxicating smell of popcorn and butter mixed with an intense feeling of warmth hit our bodies. We walked towards the room where the movie was being viewed and I thought I would be extra responsible, so I stopped and asked the ticket collector if a group of girls and one woman already went in before us, and if so if they mentioned that there were two more of us. He sort of nodded and waved me on, and my friend was already several steps ahead of me. We walked in and I tried to scour the full seats for the familiar faces we were supposed to be sitting with but it was too dark to make out people’s faces except for when they looked at us with annoyed face as we were disrupting their movie. We found two empty seats next to each other at the end of an aisle and sat down. I glanced around the room once more but couldn’t see very well, but tried to settle the strange pit my stomach that had appeared by reassuring myself that my mom was already in the theatre, sitting somewhere and wondering where her bottle of water was.

About halfway through the movie the lights in the theatre flashed on. The movie screen dimmed and the sound was covered by the audience’s murmurs and immediate complaints. I immediately knew why the lights had gone on, and as I slumped down in my seat and looked across the room to the door I saw a young ticket collector and my mom standing by the light switch. My mom’s face was beat red and her face as soaked with tears. Her eyes were wide and frantic, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I stood up quickly along with my friend who had a dopey expression on her face. She had a very sheltered life and held no concept of reality. She didn’t understand how worried my mom must have been, or how upset she was. But I knew. The movie theatre was completely full and everyone looked from my frantic mother, to us two young girls walking as quickly as we could. I felt my face turn bright red, and I felt a mixture of shame and embarrassment. I couldn’t look at my mom as I got closer to her. I didn’t know whether I was going to throw up, cry, or punch my friend in the face for having such a dumb look on her face. As I got closer to my mom she began to sob in front of our entire audience. She grabbed me by my jacket and harshly pulled me outside while she tried to regain control of herself. She yelled and cried the whole walk back to the Wal-Mart where my sister and her friends, and a handful of cops and concerned employees were waiting. I wanted to explain to everyone that it was truly a simple mistake, but instead I received many looks and comments that signified that I was a selfish brat. We were apparently missing for an hour and a half, and the cops were called and everything due to the longest “Code Amber” the store had ever witnessed. I later found out that my mom wasn’t able to get tickets for the 1:00 show, and so they were planning on going to a later show. I not only practically ruined my sister’s birthday, but was also unable to walk into that particular Wal-Mart and theatre for about a year.