Last week Jim and I decided to see a movie. Jim doesn’t know anything about a movie before he sees it as he doesn’t watch the promos on TV or read reviews. So I was only marginally surprised when he picked the very popular ‘war action’ movie Made of Honor.

He managed to stay awake for most of the showing thanks in part to the bucket of pop corn and the caffeinated soft drink.

This week to make up for last week’s chick flick I suggested we see the new Indiana Jones’ film. No sleep time in one of these. True to form Indy faces danger and gets out of scrapes like the true adventure hero he is.

However, half-way through the movie the screen went black. No sound, no picture. We, the couple of dozen movie-goers, sat and waited. A few trickled out to tell the theater management. After a couple of minutes the screen blazed again with action…but no sound. We were entertained by four high school age students sitting near the front who voiced dialogue which they cleverly made up to the mouth movement of the actors on the silent screen while a few others went back to management to report the problem. Five minutes or so later, the background soundtrack burst forth but no dialogue. Thanks to the students we could keep up with some sort of story line.

Eventually when the problem was not fixed we made our way out of the theatre to the ticket area, hoping to have our money refunded. We could hear the tirade while we were coming down the hallway of the theatre. A man was quite loudly berating the manager, insisting it was her fault that his afternoon had been ruined, the movie had been spoiled for him, and she was incompetent and should not have a position in management if she could not handle the job and on and on. We got behind him in line as she was handing over his refund with a ‘sorry’ ‘I wish it had not happened.’ He was not to be appeased and grabbed his refund and stormed out of the doors.

Wow, I thought, it was just a movie!

The manger’s face was red but she was holding it together. Not so fortunate was the teen age ticket seller behind her who was ready to burst into tears. As she handed us our refund we simply said ‘thanks, we know this was not your fault.’

I’m thinking about what I wrote yesterday. A dispute really can be one sided. This man had gone over some imaginary edge, was on a roll and would not be calmed. Selfishness reigned.

I pondered the cosmic scheme of things. The things that perhaps really might be worth a tirade. Serious life-altering things. If I wrote a list of those items, a movie breaking down would not make the list.

That’s what I think.