Last night, I went to my local movie theater to see Iron Man with captions.  Good movie and Robert Downey Jr. was perfect for the role.

I get to the theater, buy my ticket, and head to my seat.  One thing I love about the open-captioned movies in my area is that the theater is usually not crowded.  On this particular evening, there was only one other couple in the place.  Nice-looking folks, about mid-40s.  I grab a seat and start texting thumpaflash.  He lives in an area where their idea of a captioned movie is to have, as he puts it, some guy who's seen the movie 14 times start talking about it in the ticket line.  Being the sensitive soul that I am, I'm texting him and basically saying, "Waiting for the movie to start, nyah, nyah, nyah."  

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the man waving at me like he's trying to flag down a taxi.  I look at him and he says (I was able to see his lips), "Is the movie showing here Iron Man?"  I resist the urge to say something cute, like "That's what the sign RIGHT OVER THE DOOR SAYS." and nod. 

I say, "This is the open-captioned showing."  He's like, "Whazzat?"  I explained it to him.

I've been using ASL for years and it's become a habit to gesture with my hands while I'm voicing.  The guy froze when he realized I was deaf.

He gets this troubled look on his face and says, "Um, they're still going to have SOUND in the movie, aren't they?"  He looks scared, like he can't POSSIBLY conceive of the notion of a movie without SOUND.  I mean, God forbid the movie not have SOUND.  That would be a TRAGEDY and he might have to go see his THERAPIST and get his medication upped because, "OH, GOD, THE MOVIE DIDN'T HAVE ANY SOUND!  IT WAS HORRIBLE!  HOLD ME!"  Sheesh.  I swear this guy looked like he was hyperventilating.

I was still in Helpful Mode, so I told him to relax.  Everything would be as if he was seeing a regular 'ol movie.  The only difference would be that the words would be projected unto the screen.

He turns and starts talking to the woman.  I'm hoping she realizes that she's with a wuss and tells him to shut up.  She pulls a paper out of her purse and they're talking.  I have no idea what they're saying and didn't care, either.

The previews start.  I love movie previews.  I don't care if I can't understand what they're saying.  While I'm watching them, Wussy Man stands up and RUNS out of the theater.  I glance at the lady and she's looking straight ahead, not moving one inch.
About two minutes later, Wussy Man comes RUNNING back in, waves to the lady like they need to GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE RIGHT NOW.  He then RUNS BACK OUT.  Next thing I know, I see this streak as the lady RUNS out, too.

WTF????  Would it have killed them to see the movie with captions?  Did they think they were intruding on some secret ritual that put their lives in danger?  I started laughing out loud right there in the theater.  I was the only one there and had a private showing of a decent movie.

Who knows?  Maybe they were afraid that invisible rays would emanate from the captions on the screen and turn them into deaf zombies!  Maybe I was there to keep them there so they couldn't escape!

Remember those ridiculous zombie movies where the creature would be chasing after someone and yelling, "BRAINS!"

These guys were probably afraid I was going to run after them yelling (or maybe even signing), "EARS!"

I'm STILL chuckling about it.