I’d see Star Trek again, even without Nachos

I’m a dork.  Not a geek or a nerd, which seem to imply intelligence, I’m just a dork.  My brother and I grew up watching Star Wars, Star Trek, basically anything with the word “star” in it – what’s up Last Starfighter!  You’d think that would have made me more astute when it came to Physics AP, but to this day, I still cannot remember 1 single moment of that class.  Perhaps Mr. Cowing should have related our problem sets to how it would have impacted the trajectory of the USS Enterprise…  alright, alright, shutting up now.

So yeah, I was excited to see this movie.  So was my brother.  I think my husband, Chris, and his wonderful brother, Alex, were amused, but nowhere near as ridiculous as my brother and me.  We would have gone opening weekend, but my brother locked himself in his room all last semester and wouldn’t come out until Finals were over.  We all agreed that today would be the day.  I picked up my brother from Penn Station (he had to come in all the way from Jersey) and we met up with Chris and Alex at the theater.  Lights dimmed, previews started (by the way, the Transformers & GI Joe previews played back-to-back and BOTH featured shots of the Eiffel Tower being destroyed… what does that say about Hollywood’s love of the French?), and then “Space, the final frontier…”

The movie was awesome.  As my mom would say (about anything good), it was OUTRAGEOUS.  I wasn’t disappointed at all by this prequel that’s not really a prequel… which is more than I can say about freaking Star Wars.  I think we all agree that CGI is the worst thing to happen to George Lucas.  Here’s a man who actually benefitted from not being able to fully realize his vision in the 80s.  How good was Star Trek?  It was so good that in my excitement, I forgot part of the main reason that I actually go out to the movies: Nachos.

Gross, I know.  Fluorescent, imitation, liquid cheese.  Yeah, that’s the stuff.  Although my friend, Angela, is majoring in Food Science and told me that anything “called” cheese has to be at least 50% cheese.  I wondered why it was bright orange to her and she said, “well the other 50% is probably food coloring.”  Good news is that if you get movie nachos (and hit those bad boys with some jalapenos – so money, baby), you can find your way to a movie seat in the dark from its luminescent glow.  I used to get free basketball tickets at my old job and would solely go because I could buy nachos and beer at the stadium.  I wasn’t even sure who was playing most of the time…

Of course, with anything that I like comes frequent and embarrassing mishaps – especially when it involves food.  I don’t know why, but I can’t seem to contain that stupid, neon orange cheese sauce.  So here are just a few of the many incidents that I’ve suffered due to this shunned-in-the-culinary-world love:

1) Well, there’s nothing better on your black skinny (term used loosely here) jeans than a lap-full of cheese.  Yeah, it was so bad that I had to leave the theatre, mid-movie, to scrape it off.  Couldn’t really wash it off, so I had a lovely, chalky stain all day (yay for matinees all the way downtown…)

2) Did you know that liquid cheese and the elbow section of your cashmere sweater don’t mix?  Yeah, they don’t.  You’re welcome for the info.  Don’t even try to wash that out (or suck the cheese off…  not that you would do that… cuz it doesn’t work, my friend…)

3) You know how there’s always sauce left over and never enough chips?  Don’t argue with the cashier about it or try and sass her with humor.  She doesn’t appreciate it and she’s not afraid to tell you so.

4) Building on #3, make sure that you slide that tray of cheese WAY under your seat during the movie so you don’t accidentally put your heal in it AND make a loud popping sound as you crush the plastic.  Yup, people WILL notice and they WILL know it’s you.

5) Careful when putting those jalapenos in your cheese.  The last thing you want to do is accidentally get some on your finger and then rub your eye with it AFTER the movie has already started, causing your eyes to water and vision to blur, not to mention having to leave the movie to rinse out your eyeball.  Oh, and wash your hands BEFORE using them to splash water in your face.

You know what?  Sometimes I think that I should just wrap myself in bubble wrap before leaving the house.  Or maybe not leave the house at all.  Is agoraphobia something that you can just “take up” like any other hobby?  You know, like knitting or something?  “I’m going to try getting into agoraphobia this week” type of thing?  Hmmm… but then how would I get my nachos?