Going to the Movies in 7th grade

Besides golfing and hair loss, a favorite activity of adults is to recall their youthful exploits at famed hot spots. I’m sure you’ve heard an uncle brag about the time he blew cocaine off the perky breasts of a Brooke Shields look-alike at Studio 54. In 20 years, white collar finance criminals the world over will regale their cellmates with tales of Moët and Molly at LIV. As a 23-year-old, it seems odd that I’d like to do the same. But fuck it, this is KRUMLIFE and I want to talk about the movies.

I’ve had this conversation countless times, and it seems clear to me that before the days of ragers and rollfests, the local cinema was the place for preadolescences to experience social and sexual encounters for the very first time.

Every Friday night, hundreds of middle school misfits would flood the lobby of United Artists Westbury 12 with hopes of hooking up with the developed girl from the neighboring town or table-topping the douchebag who pegged you with a dodgeball in gym class. Actually watching a film was an afterthought.

Going to the movies was a well-needed reprieve from the prying eyes of parents. For the first time in 12 years, you were granted a shred of independence. You got dropped off at 8, picked up at 10, and hopefully sometime in between, someone gave you a handjob. Of course, there were those who weren’t afforded such a luxury; the youths whose parents insisted on staying at the theater to keep an eye out (Those smothered unfortunates went on to get addicted to five different drugs the first week of college).

Oh how I remember the wandering hands and heavy breaths during Pay It Forward! To this day, I cannot remember a single plot line from age 11-14. What happens at the end of Tuck Everlasting? Beats me, I was touching titties! We were living in some kind of sophisticated sexual liberation. Nobody was drunk, no one was high; it was a party fueled by raging hormones.

I hope the tradition of first row fuck fests and nacho cheese banquets lives on. Every time I see a brace-faced bro slide a twenty under that glass partition, I tear up a little. Long live the movies; the training ground of nightlife. 

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 Have a story about movie madness from your youth? Feel free to share in the comments section.