Perfect Moments: The Boy, the Wintry Day, the Film, the Flash of Panic

On a recent wintry day, The Boy (Who Was No Longer a Boy) and The Missus decided to go to a movie.

Now, because the day was in fact wintry, and because “wintry” seldom applied to weather conditions where The Boy and The Missus lived, they needed to undertake certain careful preparations in advance. Warm clothing needed to be retrieved from dusty closet recesses. Human bodies needed to be tanked up with caffeine and/or cocoa.

And then there was the matter of The Boy’s hands.

Especially in chilly, dry conditions, the skin of The Boy’s hands — more precisely, his fingers — tended to dry and chap and split rather painfully. Depending on his mood and energy level and the available time, he might choose to ignore the problem; to “lotion up”; or to go the whole hog — applying ointment and BandAid(s) to the affected digit(s). On the afternoon in question, The Boy decided to go the whole hog. Indeed, not only did he swath his index finger in two BandAids, he actually sealed the edges and the fingertip with waterproof tape: the finger wasn’t merely bandaged, it was sheathed in what the Crayola people used to call (in benighted non-PC days of yore) “flesh-colored” plastic.

And then he and The Missus embarked.

The movie in question was not one which The Boy probably would have chosen on his own. It involved vampires and werewolves and much torment of the protagonists’ adolescent souls. (The female and male leads shared a curious facial tic: just before smiling, chuckling, or showing amusement of any sort, their brows furrowed in a mini-frown. The Boy wondered if this strange little bit of stage business came from the books on which the movie was based, or from the filmmakers.)

But The Boy happily went anyway, because:

• The Missus really wanted to go; and
• they seldom went to the movies anyhow; and
• they’d attended this film’s predecessor; and
• The Boy hadn’t minded that film as much as he’d thought; and
• for her birthday, The Boy had given The Missus the DVD edition of Part 1, which came with a voucher for one free ticket to see Part 2 in the theater.

They got to the theater and purchased the tickets and then, because the time was getting a little late and The Boy loved movie previews almost as much as movies themselves, he offered The Missus some money to get the cold beverage he knew she would want during the film — while he himself went to the theater and got decent seats for them.

As he sat down in the theater, the last preview was just winding up. He noticed that the tube of bandages on his finger felt a little loose, but it still felt secure so he quickly forgot about it. The lights were dimming. The Missus was arriving. The feature’s title was emerging into view, over a backdrop which transitioned gradually through the phases of the moon and the swelling of the overture. The Boy settled back into his “stadium seat” to enjoy the movie.

The Missus, per her custom, had inserted her cold drink into the cupholder thingy in the armrest between their two seats. And although The Boy typically did not partake of beverages much during movies, he found himself sipping at this one quite a bit over the next two hours.

Perhaps it was the very low humidity. Or perhaps it was the movie itself, which certainly involved a lot of (mercifully off-camera) sipping.

In any case, The Boy held the cup in his hand and drew on the straw numerous times. And when the film was over, as they stood to leave, he noticed that the bandage around his index finger — the index finger of the hand with which he had been holding the beverage — was not only loose, but actually a little damp. He tested it again…

Loose. Damp, yes. But it would hold.

They left the auditorium and repaired (as you might expect, after all that sipping) to their respective restrooms. They planned their evening meal. They left the multiplex, went home, prepared their evening meal, and ate.

Sometime during the course of this quiet Sunday evening, The Boy noticed cool air upon an exposed index finger. Yes, darn it, he had lost his bandage. He mentally backtracked over the day, the afternoon, the early evening. He couldn’t think when the thing might have dropped off. He hoped it wasn’t in the movie theater, grocery store, or — ack! — the kitchen in which the meal had been prepared. He waited for a shriek from The Missus or The Stepson which would signal the mystery’s solution but, both alas and to his relief, none came. Well, it would turn up. It had probably gone into the trash, or was on the floor of the car or garage — or The Dog would suddenly begin hacking and spitting under the table. The Boy was not worried.

They cleaned up after the meal. They watched a little TV. Eventually, drowsing on the sofa, The Boy decided it was time to get ready for bed. He pressed his clothes for work the next day, did his various other last-call duties, and went into the bathroom.

Three minutes later he was back in the living room, standing by The Missus’s chair. The Missus looked away from the TV during a commercial. “What?” she asked.

“Do you want to know,” said The Boy, “something guaranteed to scare the living hell out of any adult man?”

“What?” repeated The Missus.

“Imagine him in the bathroom. Standing at the toilet. He unzips his fly. And then a long cylinder the color of his skin falls from the fly into the toilet…”