The People of State College Part Four: Movie Ticket seller

The only theater near downtown State College is independant. It shows foreign films.

So anyway, about a week ago I was in the mood for a movie. The independant theater wouldn't do because as much as I enjoy feeling sophisticated and superior, at the time I wanted to be entertained. I looked at a map online and discovered that there was a movie theater within 2.3 miles of my apartment. This was a walkable distance(since I don't have a car, it had to be). I wanted to go see Baby Mama, the new Tina Fey movie. The movie started at seven. I left my apartment at 5:40 pm. On the way I tried to take several shortcuts. This was a mistake as Central Pennsylvanians are very fond of dead ends. I backtracked and decided to stick to College Avenue. There were no sidewalks but it was not a dead end.

I know I can walk a mile in about 20-25 minutes. By the time an hour passed and I did not seem like I was close to Carmike Cinema 6 I started to get nervous. I passed several grumpy looking people but I finally found somebody who looked friendly enough to ask for directions. I asked for directions. I actually did this several times. Everyone told me the theater was not far. They all seemed to think I had a car... which made sense inside convenient stores connected to gas stations but did not make sense when I asked people on the street. They may have been blind? I'm not sure that excuse is legit. I think more likely they were so unused to the idea of some one going to a movie theater without a car that they assumed I had one that was invisible.

Forty minutes later I arrived at a movie theater (not Carmike Cinema 6). The road signs heading back toward my apartment said "State College: 4 miles". I was very tired and it was getting late and there were no sidewalks on the way back and Pennsylvania drivers are crazy. But I had come this far so I bought a ticket. The cashier sold me a ticket to the new Indiana Jones movie. The ticket itself was a very flimsy strip of paper about a centimeter wide and two and a half centimeters long. I said to the cashier "really, this is a ticket" He told me "Yeah, so hold onto that, be careful with it" He said it like I was a child and then turned back to his friend. He also sold me a student ticket but never checked my ID. And nobody ever looked at that flimsy strip of a ticket anyways. So even though I heeded that guys warning and was extra careful with the ticket, it never did any good.