Little Woman, Big Bill

Let's talk about the best film of the year. Aside from my Instagram stories. Little Women. 

Actually, the 2 are combined here.

I'm sure by now you have all heard that Saoirse Ronan gave a masterful performance...as expected. She played Jo, the Carrie Bradshaw of the March sisters. When you're little girls (or Little Women, I suppose) everyone thinks they're Jo but you know you're the only real Jo in your friend group. No matter how many times Sarah is like "I'm Jo because I'm going to move to New York" and you're like "shut up Sarah, your mom packs a Hostess cupcake in your lunch every day and you whine when it's vanilla instead of chocolate, you're NOT Jo" and that kind of makes you Amy, doesn't it? 

But anyway. What I was not expecting was to leave the theater loving Amy March thanks to Florence Pugh. The whole film was just fantastic. What was not fantastic...aside from Greta Gerwig not being nominated for best director...was part of my movie-watching experience.

See I went to see Little Women on a date. A first date. (Those are the only kind I have.) And I saw it at CineBistro. I had never been there before but when my date suggested dinner and movie I counter-offered that we combine the two because if you don't run your schedule your schedule will run you.

We arrived at the theater and my date paid for our tickets. The tickets themselves were a lot more than I thought they would be. I think $17 or $18 each. As we walked to our cinema, he made a joke about our next date needing to be at a park or something and I thought oh jeez, he already wants a refund but I decided to walk it off because I was dying to see the movie.

We were seated and the waiter began explaining the process to us since we hadn't been to a CineBistro before. And as my date was asking the waiter questions I realized that he thought all of the food was included. I don't necessarily blame him because the tickets were ridiculously expensive even for such a sprawling metropolis as Cary, North Carolina. But there were prices on the menu, surely he would see them, right? I didn't know what to do. Do I womansplain the way menus work to him our first time meeting? And isn't there a chance that I'm wrong? I mean I've never been wrong before but you never know. So I just let it happen.

It was like when you're playing foosball and you're able to stop some of the fast shots but then a slow one just rolls by your men and into the goal. And you watch the whole thing happen in slow motion but are powerless to stop it. It's like your brain and your body stop communicating. You reach for the bars but can't find the right ones. You try to twist them into position but your wrists don't know which way to go. Does this happen to anyone else or am I just really bad at foosball?

So I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, a $12 appetizer, and he ordered a salad. And a glass of wine. And some calamari. The waiter punched in our order on his tablet and it printed out a bill. My date took the bill and I watched as he looked it over and eventually realized that the Arabic numerals beside each menu item weren't purely decorative. Now we wait.

Would he pull a Charles Daniel and say "so nothing is included with the $20 ticket? Are the Rold Golds here made of real gold?" loudly so that the other patrons could agree with him and perhaps revolt?

Would he be a Karen and ask to speak to the manager? Please don't make a scene, please don't make a scene.

That's when he looked at me and asked if I had a card. And I said yes. Because what can you do? I didn't want to make this a whole thing, a note my date should have taken earlier, so I said yes. He asked the waiter to split the bill and the waiter confirmed that he wanted everything split down the middle and my date said yes. 

So I paid $30. The waiter seemed to be very empathetic that my date wasn't realizing that his meal was a lot more expensive than mine. But I did the math. I had technically covered my ticket and my meal, no matter the order of operations. So there would be no "thank you for dinner" unless I was thanking myself for my dinner. Which I paid for. Myself.

So I sat there and watched a movie that I paid $18 to see. And ate tater tots that I paid $12 to eat. With a man who had ostensibly just asked me to split a bill he was more than 3/4s responsible for. I don't demand to be treated to expensive gifts and dates and dinners. I don't expect to be pampered. But I also don't want to be robbed. He knows I'm a teacher. He made a comment about how teachers don't get paid enough. I practically live in the genteel poverty that Little Women exemplifies.

It's okay. I've moved on. I enjoyed the movie. I cried the whole time. My mascara stayed put. It was beautiful. And  then I made guesses at which zodiac signs matched which March sisters. I am hoping that I recover from this ordeal with the wisdom of Meg. The determination of Jo. The kindness of Beth. And the pout of Amy.