Carol’s Column

Memories are made of evenings like this

LIFE is short, so when an opportunity happens, you've got to grab it with both feet and hang on tight.

Of course, you don't always recognise an opportunity for what it is. Take last Saturday night when the father of my children asked me to a movie. I giggled and thought ag, there's life in the old horse yet.

When I came downstairs in my puce candlewick dressing gown clutching my long-distance reading glasses, he was appalled.

"You look like Ronald Reagan. I can't take you to the movies in that outfit," he said.

I was stunned. "You mean we're going out. You mean you don't want to have homemade popcorn and koeksisters and watch 'Day of the Jackal', Cliff Saunders and the epilogue?"

He nodded and wiggled his newly-trimmed eyebrows. "C'mon baby, shake it! Tonight we're going to razzle. We're painting the town red. We're going to a premiere. I bought two tickets and the money goes towards the 'Save the Amoeba Fund'."

Quick as a flash, I leapt upstairs and changed into my cute little number with the scooped back and baseball shoulder pads. For a dramatic touch, I pinned the purple chiffon ruffled toilet-paper holder from my mother-in-law to my cleavage, popped my bronze acrylic wig with the auburn highlights on my head and sallied forth.

"Honey, you look sensational," said my man, peering through his new oval-framed spectacles with the fade-out lenses.

In the car, I whinnied romantically.

"Do you remember the last time you took me to a movie?" I said, nestling my head on the electronically adjustable headrest.

"Yes," he nodded, "you were nine months pregnant and got stuck in the seat. It took the entire fire department to cut you free. How could I forget?"

Memories are made of this.

We found a parking place near the cinema.

While walking the 11 blocks, an airconditioner extractor blasted my acrylic coiffure off my head and sent it whirling upwards where it landed on a turn-right sign. I wedged my right heel in a crack in the pavement and recklessly abandoned it to the municipal cleaners.

"Don't worry," said my spouse, "on you, a limp looks good."

The foyer of the cinema sparkled as the glitterati bared their molars and sipped champagne.

We were shown to our seats by a pimpled youth with earringed nostrils and halitosis.

As I placed my draped derriere into the seat and pushed it backwards, the seat went flat and I found my head in the lap of the gentleman behind, while my feet shot forward becoming entangled in the permed mane of hair in front.

"How can you go to sleep before the film's started?" growled my husband, yanking me upright.

"A hinge has gone," I whispered.

"Don't I know it," he answered loudly.

As the lights dimmed, he grabbed my hand, just like the old days. "Take off your gloves," he hissed.

"That's not gloves, that's my skin," I snarled, withdrawing my corrugated hand.

"Shhhh," spat the dowager beside us.

So we shhhhhd.

Then: "Please could you remove your head," I whispered to the permed mane in front of me, "I can't see."

The head swivelled. Good heavens, it was a man. "Are you asking for trouble?" he bellowed.

People are so nice.

The first half of the film was gripping, a psychological thriller. Beside me, my husband snored gently and smiled happily in his sleep.

I spent most of the interval locked in a toilet and it was only when they extricated me that I noticed the sign on the door saying "Out of Order".

Meanwhile, in the foyer, my husband was fighting with the fittest. With his jacket split and his shirt ripped, he came towards me triumphantly clutching a cup of raspberry slush. Just then someone dropped an icecream down my scooped back.

The bell donged and we returned to our seats.

The lights dimmed and the second half began. I caught my breath in anticipation. The tension was unbearable, who was the murderer? The school teacher? The pupil? The spurned wife? The vegetable man? The flamenco dancer? The midget?

Suddenly there was light and a little grey man appeared on the stage.

"Ladies and gentlemen, due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to continue the film."

We dashed home.

I mean, what could be nicer than homemade popcorn, koeksisters, half "The Day of the Jackal", Cliff Saunders and the epilogue on a Saturday night?

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