THE FREAKS COME OUT AT NIGHT

And last night, we dropped our daughter right into the middle of all of them.

PIRATES OF THE CARRIBBEAN III!!!

Pirates of the Carribbean I was an entertaining movie; however, I have yet to see the second and as of last night, the third. Having a pre-teen in the house, I've been experiencing the overwhelming, exciting panic of Pirates III looming on the horizon, for at least a month. All this week, we've heard Pirates this, and Pirates that and occasionally, "Oh yeah, I better go study for exams".

Anna's Seventh Grade class has been planning ever since the release date was announced, to go to the Midnight Premiere of Pirates/Carribbean III. A group of the kids from school had went to the last Premiere and the Premiere of SpiderMan, as well, and now it's something they all do. Last night, the long-awaited dream became reality.

I realized early on, that people would be dressed up like pirates but when we stood around waiting for the chaperones to show up, I began to get a little uneasy. Nobody was dressed particularly weird but they all were so old compared to my young, innocent seventh-grade child. The boys seemed especially virile and suspicious. "Don't you even THINK about looking at my daughter!" I wanted to yell at all of them, as we went over the rules again...no going to the bathroom by yourself, meet me *here* when you get out, stay with your group, use your phone to call if you feel uncomfortable, tell Mr. So-and-So if anyone hassles you. I contemplated several times going and buying a ticket and guarding my child from "the hormones" but there were a few problems with that impromptu thought:

1) Anna was looking forward, I'm sure, to not having "the parents" attend (I'll mention briefly here an interest in a certain boy)
2) If I saw Pirates III before I saw Pirates II, it would ruin the whole plot
3) Gerald was waiting for me to come home and help him grade--fun!
4) I'm fairly sure they were SOLD OUT

When the chaperoning parents came on the scene, whew--mostly Dads, I quickly and graciously took my place back in the car to drive home. One of the Dads is a towering, burly military man and I found out when I got home that he and Gerald had talked and he assured us (Gerald specifically) that he'd take care of "the boy" or anyone else should that become necessary.

I went home and graded Freshmen Bible verse exams--which is torture. I don't know why the teachers do that to themselves and what good does it do to MAKE kids memorize all those words? I had to do that all thru school and, to this day, I cannot recall a verse just because you throw out the reference. As a matter of fact, I think it burns kids out on reading the Bible and they don't actually learn the spirit of the verse, just the words to pass the test and then they forget. Gerald and I discuss this often and we disagree. BUT, that's another blog.

So, at 2:45 AM, I go pick up Anna. I stand around outside with all the smokers, obnoxiously exuberant Pirates, police and a few frisky teens, waiting for all the credits to be over. It was a LONG list of credits, which at the end, had a surprise. The Eighth Graders had earlier in the day, at the other theatre's 8PM premiere, gone to see Pirates III and leaked the info to the Seventh Graders. So I had no choice, I had to wait--NO WAY they were going to miss anything! I kid you not, the credits were fifteen minutes long!

Sure, they could have went to the 8:00 showing and saved their parents droopy eyes but where's the fun in that? It's something you do when you're young and unencumbered by life's burdens and early mornings. On top of that, they had just spent the day canoeing on the Flint River and cooking s'mores and hot dogs at a last-day-of-school party. I remember going full-speed like that.

Oh, to not be that young again but to have that energy!

Movie Review from teenagers: the movie was confusing; they'll have to see it again to understand it all. Yeah, one of those.