I am an airhead

Today at my library as part of our ongoing 'movie nights' I chose to show the movie "Star Wars." Not "Star Wars: Episode Six: A New Hope: Let's Plot Backwards." Just plain ole goddamn "Star Wars."

My bossman brought in his DVD copy since, as long as we own the movie on VHS, we can show a copy not owned by the 'brary. At some point during the day I misplaced it. Forty five minutes before the movie is set to start I go to my desk to grab it and start putting all the shit together I need to show the movie. Stuff like the subwoofer, speakers, popcorn, cheesy sprinkles, salt and DVD player. I find everything I need but the DVD. Where's the DVD? I don't know and neither does anyone else. I then scour the branch, tracing my steps after I took possesion of the DVD. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Squat. Naturally as I'm doing the search I am asked by other staff members what I am looking for and I'm sure as I relate to them what's going on they are thinking, "This goddamn doofus is a librarian? Jesus."

Next step: go to Blockbuster and spend five bucks for a rental version of the movie. I get to the Blockbuster down the road and all I can find in the action section is a VHS copy of the damn thing. I go to the counter and ask the cashier if they have any DVD copies of the flick. He takes me over to the new release wall and grabs one of the twenty copies of the movie stored there. I hadn't thought of that in my frazzled state. I pay for it and head back to the library with about twenty minutes to set up. Melanie is nice enough to pop the popcorn for me and I am ready to go by showtime.

The whole time I am dong this there is a thought in the back of my head and that is "we've been having trouble with attendance to these things and if no one shows up I am going to hurl myself out a window." Showtime comes around, nobody has shown up. Ten minutes after showtime, no one. I decide to watch a couple of scenes and the pack everything up. After the first scene I choose to view someone jiggles the door latch. I let a father and his young son in. I start the movie quickly so we can finish before the library closes. Ten minutes later a mother and very young son come in. Alright, we got a movie night rolling here.

The mother and three-year-old sit behind me and every once in a while he asks her stuff like "who's that?" and "What's that guy doing?" I didn't hear her answers. I think she shushed him a couple of times. Didn't bother me. I like telling kids what's going during movies. There's no reason to leave them confused, is there? I remember when I was watching one of the Batman movies at the Park Terrace theater. It was opening weekend and the theater was full of kids. I sat up front because that's where I prefere to be and I was surrounded by kids who had been allowed by their parents to sit up front. One kid was telling another that Bruce Wayne, who was oncsreen, was Batman. His friend refused to believe that. The first kid turned to me and said, "Mister, that guy's Batman, isn't he?" I said "Yup." He turned back to his buddy and said, "See, I told you he's Batman."

Thank god a few people showed up.