Captive Audience

I like to think that I’m a culturally astute guy. I love the symphony, will watch ballet and even partake in opera. I enjoy going to Diamond Head and Manoa Valley theatres for their plays and musicals. But when it comes to movies, I tend to fall on the side of what a modern caveman would watch. Now that the holidays have subsided, I wanted to return to some normalcy.

My wife and 15-year-old daughter couldn’t agree more, so the other week we decided to go out to watch a movie. The unfortunate thing was that it was their turn to select the movie we were to view. That would undoubtably end up being a chick flick. But since the last time I got to choose Skyfall, I agreed to watch whatever they wanted.

Whoa, they chose Les Miserables. I pleaded with them, saying that I didn’t think I could sit through a two-and-a-half-hour musical. I resisted, but then they told me that Russell Crowe from Gladiator was in it as well as X-Man Wolverine Hugh Jackman and Sacha Baron Cohen from Borat. OK, I thought, maybe it won’t be so bad.

When we walked into the theater, nearly all the seats were taken. We finally found three open seats next to each other and snapped them up. I had loaded up with concession foods as I felt they would help to pass the time. It wasn’t until after all the previews that I noticed something. That something was that the young guy sitting next to me was wearing cologne – a lot of it!

I guess he was on a date, but it was as though he bathed himself in a vat of Axe cologne. It smelled as though I was in the boy’s corner of a high school dance. The longer I sat there, the more prominent the “fumes” seemed to be. I looked around to change seats, but nothing was available. I tried to convey this to my wife and daughter, but they immediately “shushed” me.

So, for two-and-a-half hours I sat through what seemed to be a pretty good movie, although I nearly passed out a few times from lack of oxygen.

When we left the theater, my wife asked how I liked the movie. I told her I wasn’t sure, but one thing I knew for certain – I understood what the title of the movie meant.