19: Adventures in Babysitting...

July, 1987

with a very big group of middle school girls

Friendly Center, Greensboro, North Carolina

It was one of those things that happens in middle school-all the little girls are going, so you want to go too.  The Group and that includes whoever happened to be in that week, was going to the movies.  It didn't matter what they were going to see, if they were going, you had to go. 

They were going to be dropped off and picked up at the Friendly Center to see a movie. This particular week, I was in the group.  I got to go-not only did my parents allow me to see it, but the other girls allowed me to go-wow!

This was an even bigger deal BECAUSE back in the 80s everyone had to call everyone else and sit around waiting for the phone to ring to find out if you were going or not.  Lily would call Sydney, Sydney would call Molly, Molly would go but only if Becky was going and  Becky wouldn't go if Kiki said she was coming, and then Lily said Kiki had every right to be there and Becky should shut it...oh the happy memories.  Somehow no one had a problem with Page.

So: Sydney and Molly and Becky and Kiki and Lily and Page went to the movies and saw... 

Adventures in Babysitting....

I remember waiting in line to get the tickets and complaining about the "Book talks" we had to give in 6th grade language arts.  I remember buying drinks and popcorn and talking about how wearing pink sweaters made Maddy May look like she was in an Easter Parade and she should get rid of them.  I remember finally finding a row of seats everyone could agree on, and I remember the movie.

I think I laughed out loud, but only at the scenes when Penelope Anne Miller was in the train station.   I just don't remember leaving the theater feeling like I left a gem of a film.  But I had been included, right?  I was part of the group, right?  Yay me...

My parents had let me watch Raising Arizona a few months earlier. Now that was funny. A police officer falls in love with a convenience store robber and they want to find a baby, and take one quintuplet-because who is going to notice? Who came up with that? This just isn't cracking me up the same way.  Is there something wrong with me? I'll need to remember this Joel and Ethan pair for later in life....

Two weeks later, I left for summer camp. All of the girls in my cabin could NOT stop talking about Adventures in Babysitting-it was the best movie ever!   Really?  Were they sure it was the best movie ever?  OK......I didn't argue with any of them, I just didn't think it qualified as best. But I could tell the other girls I had gone and follow along with the plot lines.  Maybe they were right, maybe it was the best -because all of us are mistaken for Playboy models, sing the blues to get out of bars, and beat our parents home before we are busted in the middle of the night.

Dirty Dancing came out a month later.  The Princess Bride came out my birthday weekend. There was plenty for middle school girls to go see. I just knew that the babysitting movie wasn't my thing.  

I had no idea that thirteen years later Chris Columbus was going to bring Harry Potter to the big screen-and very well, if not verbatim. 

This was the last time I went with an entire group of girls that big to see a movie just because they were going.

And although it wasn't my thing, I have no problem dancing around my room to a catchy song..just like Elisabeth Shue did...

I'll go do it right now...who is with me?