How To . . . The Dark Knight

HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY GO TO THE 3:15 am SHOWING OF

THE DARK KNIGHT

and live to tell about it:

1. Work extra hard on Thursday so you can take Friday off.

2. Go to the store and stock up on treats such as: Red Vines, Mambas, Donuts, String Cheese, Charleston Chew Mini's, Scooby Doo Fruit Snacks, Bottled Water, Reeses Pieces, Juice, Peanut M&M's, Junior Mints and plenty of Coke.

3. Have Chester make a delicious meal of Spaghetti for everyone.

4. Watch the old Batman Cartoon series as a warm-up.

5. Blow up the air mattress to ensure the maximum amount of comfort possible.

6. Watch Batman Begins for the 15th time in your life.

7. Read a book.

8. Watch your friends play the X-box while you're pretending to read your book.

9. Sleep for about 2 hours.

10. Wake up after 20 minutes because you're so freaking excited to see this movie.

11. Sit around talking with your bestest friends because they can't sleep either.

12. Eat 4 mini donuts for "breakfast".

13. Wake everyone else up 2 minutes before you are supposed to leave.

14. Leave 10 minutes late because you should have jumped on Nick a little harder to wake him up.

15. Have Chester drive because he can make up for the 10 minutes we just lost. Seriously Nick - come on!

16. Meet the rest of the crew in line at the Imax theatre.

17. Sit down and hand out the treats that are still intact.

18. Wait patiently for your ginormous coke that Nick is standing in line for.

19. Get extremely pissed off when Nick comes back empty handed!

20. Get even more pissed off when you find out it was your brother's fault that you don't have a coke in your hands right now because he ratted Nick out for being a butt-er.

21. Bribe the usher to go get you a coke. (Because someone told you that they won't let you back in after the movie starts, and you don't want to miss the trailers. They are, after all - the best part.) (Tangent - did you know I would be perfectly content watching a whole 2 hours of previews instead of an actual movie - Love them!)

22. Turn red out of embarrassment when the usher laughs at you and says of course they let you back in.

23. Go stand in the 5 person long line that was "too long" to stand in according to Nick.
24. Wait impatiently, tapping your foot, while the impossibly large man in front of you gets the items he ordered then proceeds to flirt with the cashier instead of getting the hell out of the way. The trailers man! The trailers!

25. Order 2 large cokes, 1 large diet coke, and a large water. Sheesh! I am such a good sister.

26. Balance 2 large cokes, 1 large diet coke, a large water and your purse in your arms while you walk down the hall to the Imax theatre, completely scared that at any moment you are going to trip over something and spill the 40 gallons of beverages you just purchased.

27. Say thank you 12 times to the usher who was kind enough to get all of the Imax theatre doors for you.

28. Distribute the drinks.

29. Realize that you just missed the Harry Potter trailer. Damn it!

30. Get situated and comfy in your seat.

31. Spend the next 2.5 hours completely stunned and unable to blink.

32. Emerge from the hot, dark theatre to the fresh, light morning. (This was the first time in my life that I entered a theatre while it was dark and came out to see the sun.)

33. Meet up with your friends so you can gush about your favorite parts.

34. Admit that even though you love the Joker and that Heath Ledger should definitely get an Oscar nom for this role, you actually loved Harvey Dent / Two Face more! Weird!

35. Drive home.

36. Sleep.

37. Dream about the next Batman.

The End. You have now learned how to successfully go to the 3:15 in the am showing of The Dark Knight and live to tell about it.