Cap Week: Prelude

If there's one good thing I can say about Louisiana, it's that we sell booze in movie theaters. I don't know if other states do it, but by god, they should. At the very least, it's great for someone who sees movies and drinks at nine in the morning, and by that I mean someone who's actively attempting to live at a destructive frequency with civilization, and by that, I mean me.

Sadly, we suck at everything else, including how we serve liquor. The corner of the theater that serves liquor was presciently half-lit. This place was to be the most depressing alcoholery I’ve ever been to (well second; there was that time I went to a gay bar for middle-aged dudes).

As I approached, the flickering lights flickered slightly less, as if to demonstrate their primacy as the most functional part of the coming carnival of heartbreaking foodstuffs. Guys, I'm not a foodie, a gourmet, or any other type of person who uses food to identify themselves; if nutrient paste came in diet coke flavor (also caffeinated, naturally), I'd be just fine with that. I almost made cookies once, and after pep-talking myself through adding almost a whole stick of butter, I eventually threw the bowl of batter out. All I could think of was a giant, disgusting stick of butter in the middle of my cookies. I read the contents on a mayonnaise jar once and almost vomited.

I don't do "empathy," especially not for people who are passionate about things I'm so aggressively indifferent towards. As far as I'm concerned, the peaked interest of others is an opportunity to look down my nose at them, and I'll be damned if I'll pass up even one opportunity for that. This place though, inspired a pained empathy for all humans who could conceive of a way that food "should be," whether its veganism, people who like steaks, Anthony Bourdain, or people who think some foods should be hot and others should be cold[1].

I buy hot dog in packs of twelve for a few bucks. I boil them in water partly because I feel like boiling water when there's hot dogs around, but mostly because they're what I cook when I'm having company, and making a hot dog hot tub fools them into believing I'm willing and/or able to cook for them.

But this place...this place...the hot dog rollers were bereft of glistening, dizzy hot dogs; a broken promise for something I didn't even want. The mini-pizzas and mega-pretzels languished under a hot lamp shamefully demoted to "room temperature lamp." I had the misfortune of noticing the daquiri machine last. Above the dispensers for both the White Russian and Chocolate daquiris was a sign that simply, hope-expungingly read, "Out of Order."

Here, I had braved sub-culinary horrors for...for nothing...nothing at all. Oh, the additional horror.

Desperate, I interrupted the conversation of the kids behind the counter to ask if they had any alcohol at all; I didn't expect I'd need it for Captain America, but it's becoming tradition, dammit! He pointed out that what I had mistaken for a standard Icee (R) machine was actually filled with frozen daquiri treats in the tantalizing standby flavors of "Red" and "Blue."

Propelled to heights that only Captain America, frozen alcohol in a movie theater, and being catapulted to victory from the precipice of boozelessness, I waited, triumphant, for my drink.

"Dude," he told me, "is it okay if it's not frozen?"

Minutes later and slightly less triumphantly, I sat with my tepid blue wine cooler and began watching Captain America: The First Avenger.

[1] Yeah, those @*&#ing weirdos.