cloverfield

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When I bought my movie ticket yesterday, I was confident that Sarah would not call. She was deathly ill, and I was on ambulance duty. "Call me if you need a ride to the doctor," I'd said.

"Okay."

"Seriously. Don't be proud."

"Okay."

We both knew she would be exactly too proud, and shortly after I got my morning phone call ("Even though talking on the phone for 20 seconds utterly exhausts me, I'm well enough to drive a car for an hour"), I was sitting in a movie theatre. Bring on Cloverfield!

For the first twenty minutes of the movie, nothing happens. Just-too-cool, pretty 20-somethings Babble Importantly about the fluffy drama of their lives, as if any of them will even know one another into their 30s. And then a monster attacks New York City. This is the exact moment Sarah called for a ride. She'd changed her mind.

On vibrate, my phone felt remarkably like a noisy, yet-unseen monster decapitating the Statue of Liberty. As if in response to the events on screen—no one told me this was a monster movie!—I stood bolt upright, without bending my knees, and I dashed from the theatre, never to return.

"Oh, go finish your movie," wheezed Sarah.

"It's okay," I said, suddenly overcome with concern for her well being. "I really wouldn't mind if those people never saw me again."