Just My Luck

So, my wife calls me on my way home from work, and says that my 11-year old son, Austin, wants to go to the movies with his "girlfriend" and two other "couples" from his 6th grade class. All the parents are fine with this, as long as we have ONE parent to go along, and since no one else could make it, this time it had to be ME. I reluctantly agreed, figuring I would just sit a couple of rows behind them, keeping a watchful eye on them from afar. So the kids head into the theater first, and walk immediately to the back row (so much for my plan to sit behind them ...) As they head toward the middle of the back row, I take a seat on the end, figuring I could glance over at them from time to time and keep everything in check. As they were getting settled in, moving around, deciding which couple would sit by which couple, it ended up that one of the guys and his girlfriend were seated right next to me. After a few minutes, my son gets up from the other end, and walks around to me. He bends down and whispers in my ear, "Dad, you're seriously NOT going to sit next to Andy, are you?"

I answered, "Well, I sat here on the end first, so technically, you guys sat by me -- I didn't choose to sit by Andy."

Austin wasn't buying it. "Can you please move?" he asked.

I looked at him, and could see the panic in his face. I realized this wasn't the typical "I'm-taking-Austin-and-his-buddies-to-see-a-movie" situation. Like it or not, this was a DATE.

I moved about three rows ahead of the happy couples, glancing back over my shoulder to give Austin the "Meet-the-Parents" hand motion of pointing at my eyes, and then pointing at his eyes to let him know I was watching.

I turn back around to realize that, except for us, the theater is empty. I mean, who goes to movies on a weeknight? At that point, a group of four high school girls walked in and stopped in their tracks when they saw me.

Yep. To them, I was the creepy middle-aged man, sitting there all by myself, checking out teen-queen Lindsey Lohan in her new movie, "Just My Luck."

"Just my luck," I thought to myself, awkwardly smiling to the girls -- who quickly avoided eye contact with me and moved to another section of the theater!