Steve Earle 'Train A Comin''

I took my nephew Preston to see ‘Madagascar’ today.

I didn’t really want to see it, but it had been a long time since the two of us went to the movies. The last picture that we saw together was ‘The Incredibles’. I still need to see it because I missed more than a few minutes because of potty breaks.

He was searching for food like a bear in a campground as soon as his mother had dropped him off. He wasn’t in the mood for ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’, he wanted to eat and hit the Cineplex. So, I thought it was a good idea to take him to Chik-fil-a for some of their delicious nuggets.

Mmmmmm…. Nuggets….

He quickly shot down that idea. To quote him… “I don’t like them nuggets. I want McDonald’s nuggets.”

While riding in Roxy (that’s my truck), we went over the rules again.

Rule number one: Never leave my side.

Rule number two: Listen to me.

Rule number three: Never leave my side.

Rule number four: Always introduce me as “Uncle Gene” to any good-looking women that start talking to you.

Rule number five: Never leave my side.

We got to Mickey D’s and ordered our food. He got the McNuggets happy meal and I got the 10-piece McNuggets meal.

I haven’t eaten at McDonald’s since Hardee’s brought out the Thickburger.

Mmmmm.... Thickburgers.

As soon as we sat down, salt rained down onto Preston’s fries just like the water falling from today’s sky. The kid has a real thing for salty stuff. I had to grab his fries and shake off the excess, and I do mean excess, salt.

I told him that if he eats that much salt, his blood will dry up and he’ll start squeaking like the Tin Man.

That lead to questions about the Tin Man and I had to remind him about ‘The Wizard Of Oz’.

“The Tin Man has blood?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “The Tin Man needs oil. I was making a comparison for comedy’s sake.”

“He’s got a heart, Uncle Gene. That means he’s got blood.”

“The Tin Man wanted a heart, Preston,” I replied. “He is a machine who wants to be human.”

“Machines are cool!” he said as he chomped down on a McNugget. Yeah, the kid can’t hold on too long for meaningful conversation.

When we got to the Carousel Cinemas (thank you Stoney), there was a long line of teenage girls. I thought to myself this is going to be awful. We had better get tickets to the 12:15 instead of the 11:50.

It turned out that all the young ladies wanted to see something with “sisterhood” attached to it. Whew!

I took Preston in to potty before settling down in the theater. We came out of the bathroom and that’s when he decided that he wanted popcorn. For some crazy reason, I had thought that we would miss the whole snack bar. Silly me.

While standing in line, I noticed some candy in a rectangular box called “Soul Patch”.

What the hell kind of candy is that?

There were many questions that rolled through my mind… Do you lick the candy and stick it under the bottom lip to look a jazzman? Are the candies shaped like jazz instruments or musical notes? Do they come with left-handed cigarettes?

But as we closed in on the counter, I got a better look at it. It was actually Sour Patch candy.

We got our three-pound sack of popcorn and two gallon cup of Pepsi and headed for theater number 9. We found two seats by themselves close to the exit aisle.

I wanted those seats because I knew that Preston’s gallon of Pepsi would make a much earlier exit than mine, and those seats were meant for kids like him.

It wasn’t two minutes after sitting down, Preston said, “Uncle Gene, I gotta potty.”

“Really,” I said. “We just got these terrific seats.”

“I got to make some deep, dark trouble.”

That’s our little phrase for number two… It’s from a line out of the John Water’s film ‘Pink Flamingos’.

So in order to try to save our seats, I left our 2 gallons of Pepsi along with a ‘Go Triad’ magazine in our seats. I was very surprised that it did the trick. I thought for sure some heathen child would be sitting there waiting for me to pick a fight with his beautiful, young and divorced mother. And if television has taught me anything, getting into a fight with another single person of the opposite sex always ends with some making out.

‘Madagascar’ sucked!

I chuckled twice for some jokes directed to the adults. One was a reference to the old ‘Twilight Zone’ episode, “To Serve Man”. And, I think the other was something that the penguins said.

That’s how “good” the movie was… I can’t remember something that I chuckled at. That’s pretty sad.

Unless you’re taking kids to ‘Madagascar’, don’t bother. Hell, the kids only laughed a couple of times. Once when there was some physical comedy and the second was a line from the zebra. You’ve heard it on the commercials and there was one punk ass kid that delivered the line before it was said on screen… “You’re biting my butt.”

If there weren’t a whole lot of impressionable kids in that theater, I would have started throwing my drink and popcorn at him.

What a friggin’ bastard!

But, Preston had a good time and that’s all that matters. Now if only I could convince his mother to let me take him to some mud wrestling….