Storytime!

There are these two nutty, quasi-sophisticated old ladies who frequent the local cineplex and go theater hopping weekly. They usually go early in the week, Monday or Wednesday (but not Tuesday!) when it's not crowded, starting with the first showing of the day (10:30ish), which, at six bucks, is a bargain (although for them it's probably like five and a quarter). I've seen and heard them so many times, and have talked with them on occasion. They are a hoot and a half. Like most Regal regulars, I will not sit anywhere near them, because they talk and crack up and act a fool during most movies, unless the story engages them, which it hardly ever does, and but not in a manner that's so overly obnoxious and clamorous that it ruins the picture show for everyone else; they always sit as high up and in the far back as possible, and as long as you're not within their viewing vicinity bubble, you'll never even know they're there. Probably.

They've been doing this for years, make no effort to hide their theater hopping ambitions, have withstood god knows how many turnovers in theater personnel and management (rumor mill says they got a General Manager ousted a few years back for trying to put an end to their feature film freeloading; a second slightly dissimilar speculation suggests the GM ouster was related to his Gen. managerial decision to replace the flavor of Coke Icee with Cherry Coke Icee even though they already carried both Red and White Cherry flavored/colored Icee, and on some special promotional occasions a third cherry-centric variety, the "for a limited-time only" Black Cherry Icee, and an alleged fourth flavor few filmgoers, if any, have observed in existence, the illusive Green Sour Cherry Icee, which could easily have been the Green Sour Apple Icee misconstrued, and but also -- and this is where it gets ridiculously preposterous—the flavor/color Blue Raspberry Icee that one-half of the biddies contended was actually an unpopular cherry flavor in a blue guise because, really, there is no such thing as a blue raspberry (or blue cherry)—a recurring conspiratorial accusation she lobbed at counter concession and box office staff and Mr. Manager whenever the cineplex featured any of the unknown/undeclared inscrutable berry likely Icee flavors dubbed Berry Blast, Golden Punch and Country Red—and so like if someone really wanted a Cherry Coke Icee why couldn't they just mix half Coke Icee with half White and/or Red Cherry Icee, let the old ladies have their Coke Icee and drink it too, and call it a day), and are well known for their shenanigans around town; they nosh at a local casual Italian dining hotspot every Tuesday (used to be Monday until the establishment started closing on Mondays due to slow business, which, let me tell you, did not go over well with this crowd of two) for lunch and sit at the same table, the one by the column that blocks the freezing breeze of conditioned air, and order iced tea with extra ice and a bowl of fucking lemons, the same Isabella insalata (split—and in the kitchen, don't you dare make them do it themselves—half with almonds, half without) with SOS (sauce on side, or in this case, dressing on side) and a twelve-inch deluxe pizza on stretched ten-inch whole wheat dough, extra crispy (but not too black! — they’re kind of racist) and cut into ten thin slices, and then, post-ingestion, proceed to sit and marinate and gabby gab gab for up to five hours, or until the dinner crew comes in, whichever or whomever comes first, while continuously consuming ungodly amounts of iced tea in total reckless abuse of the free refill policy, lemons and Spelenda until urinary crest is reached and begins to dribble over the tops of their inner levees, just about breaching britches, forcing the reluctant breaking of the seal, and culminating in the cyclical cross-legged antsy scurrying to and fro the ladies' room in turn-taking shifts, because someone has to watch their bulbous handbags (assumedly filled with lemons), before their wee bladders burst forth (and if they do, watch out, urine trouble) all the while fending off their usual waiter's (yrs truly) many attempts to refill their beverages, always with the same joke about how any additional iced tea would make them float away.

But yeah, this tandem menace fucking loves me.