Two for the Price of One (or Not)

My long weekend was nice and mostly uneventful.  I cleaned house, got my oil changed and exercised.  We did loads and loads of laundry and marathon watched the latest season of Scandal.  We still need to get caught up on The Bates Motel before season 2 of Orange is the New Black comes out.  We also went to the movies to see Neighbors (really good) and ate giant hamburgers at Nicky Rotten's afterwards (also really good).  

At the Drive In

Does anyone still have a drive in movie theater in your city?  Do you ever go?  There are exactly two in all of San Diego county that I know of.  It has been a really, really long time since I went and MJ hasn't been to one since he's lived here.  One of MJ's friends mentioned that he was going on Sunday.  We have an extra day.  Why not?  So we decided to go too.

It was my idea to wear pajamas.  "Everybody does it," I said like the drive in theater expert I am not; but since he's never been to one here he believed me.  To get "dressed" I changed out of the pajamas I'd been wearing all day and into other (warmer) pajamas.  For the low, low price of $8.00 per person we got to see Blended and Godzilla.  They had one other double feature showing behind us.  They do reserve the right to check your trunk so don't even think about trying to smuggle in extra bodies.  You could get caught.

I used to go with my parents when I was a kid.  The one we went to had several more screens and has long since closed but many, many years later nothing had changed.  Well, one thing has.  Back in the day they didn't have the technology (or whatever it is that makes this happen) to broadcast the movie sound over your AM radio station airwaves in your car.  Each car had to pull up near a metal pole that has these heavy squarish metal speakers hanging from it.  Each speaker was attached to the pole with a wire and had a hook on it that allowed you to hang it from your car window so you could hear the movie sound.  Even as I'm writing this it sounds so incredibly antiquated and is coming from such a deep part of my memory that I almost feel like I'm making it up.   It sounds almost as ridiculous as two tin cans and yarn, but it's all real.  I'm just old.  Anyway, aside from that there is still the drive up booth where you pay, the crunch of gravel under your tires as you claim your spot, dark shadowy figures roaming around in pajamas, bathrooms with really long lines in between movies and the snack bar building with presumably overpriced yet comparatively cheaper then actual movie theater popcorn, candy and hot dogs.  I don't know for sure because we brought our own snacks.  I'm not sure what the policy is on alcohol.  I didn't bother to look that up, but we brought a bottle of wine, popcorn and candy.

There is something so old school about the whole drive in experience.  It's a shame most of them have shut down over the years.  I guess that's partly why. Maybe it's a little too old school for some people but we had fun.

Keeping it classy in Joe Boxer

Another thing that hasn't changed is my inability to stay up for the 2nd movie.  The first movie can't start until after dark  Blended started at 8:30pm.  There were only 3 previews which is a huge improvement from movie theaters but between that and intermission the 2nd movie didn't start until around 10:45pm.  I tried even though I knew I wouldn't make it.  Maybe 1/4 of the way through it was a wrap.  I laid  my head down on the pillow I'd shoved between the seats on top of the center console and there it stayed until I felt are car moving again when it was time to go home.

Which is really too bad because I wanted to see Godzilla more then I wanted to see Blended and it's not really two for the price of one if you only saw one.

Bloglovin' // Twitter // Facebook // Instagram