CAPTAIN AMERICA FOILED!

So we were planning to see Captain America at a downtown theater that is located in a big multi-story building with many restaurants, bars, pubs, grills, entertainment venues and outside seating areas.

So Bill spent endless time in the morning plotting our route (even though we only live a couple of miles from downtown, the streets here in Charlotte are twisty and curvy and change names often. Bill is the ultimate direction master but even he is having a hard time in this town.) and then we went over the route again later on when Alicia came over.

We felt fairly confident as i consulted my notes and we were making all the correct turns UNTIL we saw a construction sign and a road closed sign (right before the street that we needed to turn on) and we were forced to turn back onto the freeway going back the way we came plus some extra distance thrown in for good cosmic humor measure.

We got off at the first exit we could and it was an exit into an alternate universe; all directions led nowhere except to abandoned buildings and pit bull looking shacks. So once again back on the freeway to get off at the next exit! Of course time is counting down towards the movie's start.

When we got off this time Bill was able to find our way back to a familiar street and we started all over as if we had just left our house except for the addition of a couple of miles! As we approached the construction area, i noticed a detour sign and we turned there and that got us to the parking structure. What a wonderland of ramps; sort of like a metal wheel of confusion. Alicia said we should stay left because that would keep us close to the escalators which we needed to get to the 3rd floor theater. But it was hard to know WHICH left so we blundered into a dead end except for the sign which said exit only so we had to carefully back up and start over.

Finally found a place to park; didn't see escalators so took the elevator up to 3 where we promptly wandered like the 2 doddering seniors we are becoming. We were the oldest people there PERIOD. it was filled with youth and hipness and rad cool clothes and vegas pitched loud loud music and signs flashing and busy busy busy. So we discovered after asking for help that we had shuffled past the theater entrance only about 2 times.

Went in past a dark purple dim lighting bar area with screaming music and saw bathrooms which we gratefully took refuge in. The stalls were so dark i couldn't see where to flush. this is no exaggeration. Get up to the booth (by now we figured we missed all the coming attractions and maybe the first few minutes of the movie) and the skinny legged halter topped girl said we needed to buy our tickets on the FIRST floor.

By this time, my groin/hip area was back to throbbing and i was doing my festus cripple crab limp. We looked at each other and agreed that Captain America won out; he vanquished the enemy- us elders!

We couldn't get our parking ticket validated of course so had to pay for that. And as a final humorous life nudge, we couldn't immediately find Toto and Bill left his glasses all tangled up in cords on the floor of the truck so he wouldn't have been able to see the screen anyway.

Ah life on the road ain't all pretty, folks!!