Pretty Ugly

I didn’t expect my night at Valley Grand Cinema to turn into a showdown with the most intense movie usher I’ve ever met. If you’ve ever dealt with an employee taking their job way too seriously, you’ll appreciate this. Here’s how my son, my friends, and I ended up under the watchful eye of a man named Jim.

My friend has our tickets.

I tell the man guarding the movie-theatre entrance like it’s the TSA checkpoint.

Do you mind if we just go in and get some popcorn and soda while we wait?

Very sternly, he tells us that if we can claim that table — the only empty one — we can enter until our tickets arrive. My son went to get our concessions while I perched at our assigned spot. And he watched, extremely uncasually. To be honest, I’ve never felt like such a criminal while not committing any crimes.

This guy can’t be serious.

Serious as a heart attack. Desperate to stop getting eye-smothered by Jim, I’m in the group chat trying to get some solid ETAs. Five minutes ’til showtime, and I’m done, my patience has expired. I approach him, explain my friends are not the timeliest, but here is the screen shot I was sent…

Can we please go sit down.

Skeptically, he looks me in the eye and tries to decide if I am a movie thief or not. I gave him my friends names, as requested.

I’ll tell ya what…

You text your friends and tell them to come see me, JIM. Aggressively pointing to his nametag.

When they get here, I’ll take a look, but they need to find ME.

JIM.

I agree, knowing full well I’m not texting anyone, anything. My son and I find our seats and in walks my friend, but not the friend with the tickets. She plops down next to me, wide-eyed.

That guy at the front was so weird!

We have a rather comical back and forth about this very serious character with the thin grey ponytail. But, we stop because Wicked: For Good is starting and we’ve been waiting a year for this moment.

Fifteen minutes into the film, my friend is nudging me and saying words I can’t understand, so I wave her off dismissively. Suddenly, loud and clear, I hear her exclaim:

It’s JIM!

Giving off some serious hall-monitor energy, in the far-left aisle, there he is, counting our seats. Which were all paid for by the way, in case there was any doubt. Jim was hoping they weren’t though.

I don’t know what Jim’s backstory is — ex-detective? Retired Navy SEAL? Former mall cop ready to die on this very specific hill?

But he brought more drama to my life than I’ve seen in months. Shout out to Jim.

Wicked was amazing, worth seeing. But unless you get your own Jim-Esque movie usher pacing the aisles like a federal agent, don’t expect quite the same level of entertainment.