EPIC EXPERIENCE

One extremely hot summer Monday, I decided to go to a movie in the early afternoon. The Exodus movie, “Gods and Kings” was featured at a new trendy theatre which advertized comfortable reclining chairs, blankets, pillows and well-prepared meals served at your seat.

I knew the ticket would be a bit pricey, but I was game for the, “put your feet up and enjoy the movie” experience. The theatre lobby was most impressive with its full-service bar and dining tables.  Approaching the ticket booth, I was instructed to choose my seat location. Since it was the first show in the afternoon, I had my pick of seats, and when I entered the theatre, I discovered that I was going to have a private showing, since I was the only one in the audience.

Climbing into my reserved reclining seat, I began to study the seat controls. I pushed the first button, and suddenly flew back into a total reclining position, which gave me a spectacular view of the theatre ceiling. A gentle voice said, “ I think you probably want to adjust that,” whereupon my movie waitress brought me back to a sitting position. She also said, “Your light is blinking.” Sure enough, the light next to my seat was doing that. “Can I take your order?”

The cheapest item on the menu was an ice cream cone, so I ordered that. When she left, I figured I still had some time to get familiar with the seat controls, so I slowly began the reclining process again. This time my headrest reclined, but my shoulders didn’t move, so I switched to the leg control. That went pretty well as my legs slowly elevated. I stopped the upward movement when my ice cream arrived, because I found it awkward to eat ice cream with my head back and my feet in the air. So, I repositioned myself back to the starting position.

The theatre lights dimmed, but my waiter-theatre-light did not. I finished my ice cream and watched Christian Bale, who pretended to be Moses, rise up against the nasty Egyptian Pharaoh, Ramses. According to the script, they had been really good pals when they were children, but had a falling out when they grew up because Moses decided to set 600,000 Jewish slaves free and skedaddle out of Egypt.

I slowly put my back into the reclining position and raised my feet on an incline. Now my tailbone was in a leather bucket.  In the meantime, Ramses got really stubborn and refused to let Moses and the slaves leave. So, God, who suspiciously sounded like Darth Vader, visited the Egyptians with some really cinematically icky plagues. I was wearing flip-flops, so I watched fish die and frogs inhabit a stinking land, through the toes of my left foot. When the gnats and swarms of flies inhabited the earth, I decided it was time to raise my legs a bit more so I wouldn’t have to watch the livestock die.

When the Egyptians developed really ugly graphic boils (bad pimples) I decided it was time to push the reclining button way back, so I could count the tiles on the ceiling. Unfortunately, I sat up too soon as the locusts arrived.

The only plague that wasn’t featured was my reclining seat. Had Ramses been given one of those, he would have let Moses leave much sooner. So after Darth Vader finally smote the first born of the Egyptians, Ramses finally let everybody go. I think he said, “Get Out!”

By now, I was sitting up again. The sea had parted and Ramses, who obviously couldn’t make up his mind, began chasing Moses and the multitudes that had successfully crossed a big river. The waves were building up. Ramses and his army didn’t have surfboards, but they kept coming.

At that moment, the check for the ice cream was delivered, and the cheerful waitress lit a flashlight so I could pay my bill. The theatre lights came up. The movie was over, but I had missed the dramatic conclusion. 

After making sure that my chair didn’t have a life of its own, I climbed out and hurried back to my house.  Luckily, I had the book at home, and read the rest of the story while sitting up straight in my favorite chair.

Esther Blumenfeld