by Jenny M.

The morning started badly when I discovered that I’d left my purse on the kitchen table and so couldn’t buy a ticket to the Filmfest. I ran home, snatched up my purse and hopped onto a train to Dammtor.
  “Oh goodie, the movie hasn’t started yet,” I said to myself when I stepped inside the cinema and saw the opening credits still rolling. The movie screen was fine but the cinema was in darkness and I couldn’t  see a thing. One of my pet peeves is people who come to the cinema after the start of the movie and cause a disturbance by having people stand up to let them past. Now I was about to become one such person.
The trouble was that my eyes weren’t adjusting to the light and I felt such a ninny dithering, drawing attention to myself and worrying about annoying others, so I decided to find a seat in the darkness. I stretched out my hand towards the nearest row of seats and, oh, shock horror, encountered someone’s knee! I put my hand on the knee of some unsuspecting man who was minding his own business and quietly watching the movie. I jumped, he jumped and I apologized in a loud whisper. Bless him, the man simply stood up to let me pass along the row. I stumbled along, aware of being a nuisance to others and of drawing attention to myself and decided to sit down as quickly as possible. Because my eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the gloom I crossed my fingers and sat down, hoping that I wasn’t going to sit on someone’s lap. Thank goodness I didn’t but the movie was almost finished before I calmed down.
  When the lights came on at the end I turned to apologise again to my neighbour but he had already gone, sensibly having fled the woman who had taken such liberties with his person. My suggestion in order to prevent this happening to you is to take a small torch to the movies, one with a discreet light which will show you if seats are empty but which won’t disturb others when the lights are dimmed. I’d hate you to have such an experience as mine or indeed that of another man with an unsuspecting knee.