"He wants to eat you like a Cuban Sandwich, Girl."

So last night I found myself with a can of Miller Genuine Draft on my right, a scarf wound around my face, a bottle of Diet Coke on my left, and a box of peanut butter Whoppers and a crumpled bag of SmartPop! at my feet. Emmet Cullen in a velour jumpsuit, straddling the back of a Jeep, towered in front of me. It was just after midnight.

Yeah. We had to wait in a line, and we talked in hushed tones about why exactly we were doing this - I had read the books, sick with the flu and bored earlier this year but had made no plans to see the movie. It was a secret shame. My friends, who normally propose midnight showings to Pineapple Express and The Dark Knight rolled out the option for seeing this - "We're bringing alcohol, let's go see that Vampire movie." they said, completely oblivious to what they were about to deal with. We were the only ones not trilling and screaming. My friends were the only men in attendance. The screaming did not stop for the first hour of the movie. I left once to take a piss, and the girls behind us were still screaming when I came back. Someone was wearing a Santa hat. The masses literally could not handle themselves.

I felt a little warm, watching that, the unabashed "I love this so much that I'm going to freak out in public, squeal, recite lines, wear t-shirts, call out declarations of love and not know what to do with myself" attitude of the majority of young women in the theater. It was a safe space for them - to get excited over a boy kissing someone's throat, even if they wouldn't know what to do if the same pair of lips pressed against theirs. Being older, and a little intoxicated, I laughed hysterically at certain points but tried to maintain the same reverence, even though my friends and I couldn't stop keeling forward to exchange aghast looks with each other. It was funny for so many reasons, but most of all it was safe. It was dangerous and arousing and exciting and uniting for them - it was good, for those girls, who not to get all sociological and Women and Gender Studies on you, but don't have many public outlets for those feelings. Trilling and vibrating with screams whenever closeups of Edward's eyes were shown was the equivalent of a sixteen year old boy shouting "NICE TITS!" at the cheerleaders.

At one point we shouldn't have been there. We should have snuck out and into something else, 'Rachel Getting Married' which I really want to see. For the five of us, three guys and two girls it was hilarious, and then everybody was bored. By halftime, our fellow patrons had settled and we had not, getting up to pee, shifting around and sharing snacks, and every involuntary laugh or snort made me feel like a horrible person for disrupting what this movie was for those girls, in the t-shirts, who had played hand-clap games in the lobby, squealing and flipping through their books so they could recite favorite passages. When Edward 'caught' the apple, they tittered. When he angrily tore his shirt open to reveal a plank of glittering vampire sirloin, they breathed in deep and let out little whimpers, tiny wails of "Omiiiiiiiiiggooooooooooood".

And we slurped lukewarm beer, ate junk and tried hard to keep from getting into it. For a lot of reasons we succeeded, and I would like to thank Jacob's very white teeth, Victoria's alpaca shrug at both prom and the killing field, Eric's tie at all times, and "Baby, LaPush. LaPush, baby. Baby LaPush! LAPUSHBABY!" for that.

But.

Robert Pattinson is very attractive when he wears sunglasses.

And this makes me want to weep.

Comments

[Jackie]

Dude, I went to see this last night and couldn't feel more akin to you.

[Amanda Boyce]

I think I love you more for this post. I didn't think that was possible... I too wanted to don a Phantom-of-the-Opera mask and wander in to the movies with the rambunctious teenagers, But I feared for my sanity and decided against it. Actually, I feared for THEIR lives as I have been known to bust some caps in people while they shriek and clap in movies. I hope the booze buzz helped the night go by quickly though. The movie got mixed reviews, which means that it will appease the masses... If I make it back from the theaters alive, I will report back :)