In search of broken chairs and caution tape

I once had this roll of yellow poly caution tape. Fascinated by the slick resilient plastic, I hid it beneath my bed, saving it for some special occasion. And while I can’t recall what happened to that hazard tape, I remember it was sorely missed when I searched for it during one of my many childhood play dates.

“I can’t find it,” I cried that day to my best friend Kris. And so we resorted to a toy box packed with Barbie dolls.

“Let’s cut their hair!” Kris giggled as she grabbed a pair of Crayola scissors and snipped away at Barbie’s blonde tresses.

Twenty-five years later, we’ve traded our Barbie dolls and play dates for laptop computers and careers. And while the former was more fun than the latter, we’ve appeased our adult lives with an occasional pass-time that, oddly enough, involves yellow caution tape.

“I wonder what’s playing at the movies?” Kris asked last Saturday while on a weekend reprieve from her Pittsburgh, Penn., residence.

“Let’s find out!” I said as we made plans for her lone night home.

Now, over the years Kris and I have developed a bizarre obsession with low budget films. We’ve frequently driven an hour’s distance to see the most recent release of these independent flicks. And that’s exactly what we did last Saturday night.

“Two tickets, please,’” we said as we slipped $20 to the attendant at the cash-only establishment. As our show time approached, we strolled down the cinema’s sloped aisle in search of our favorite seats – located behind a row of broken chairs wrapped in yellow caution tape.

“It’s been so long since we’ve been here,” I said as we sauntered alongside the theater’s retro-carpeted walls.

“Too long,” Kris sighed, stalling for a moment as she turned towards me.

“Where’s the caution tape?” she asked, suddenly aware of the absent seat marker.

“I don’t know?” I replied. “Have they finally fixed that row of broken seats?”

After unsuccessfully scanning the cinema for the missing landmark, we settled into what we believed were our two seats.

“This doesn’t feel right,” I sighed. And Kris agreed. After a moment’s deliberation, we decided to climb over a row of empty seats.

“I think this is it,” Kris said as she sipped her diet cola with satisfaction.

“Well I’m not so sure,” I replied, squirming on my chair’s squeaky cushion.

A few miserable minutes passed until, still unsatisfied with our seating arrangement, we crawled backward to our original row.

“Why can’t we figure this out?” I mumbled while a few fellow moviegoers stared at our pre-show spectacle.

“I don’t know,” Kris replied. “But I think we need to slide over a few seats.”

And so we shifted to the left. And then back to the right. We climbed over more rows of cushioned chairs until we were stilled by the dimming lights.

As the cinema silenced for the feature presentation, Spanish film credits flashed across the movie screen.

And it was then that I whispered to my best friend: “It doesn’t matter where we sit after all, because I can’t understand anything.”



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