Last week my father-in-law and I braved the impossible. No we didn’t scale Kilimanjaro or swim with Makos off the Great Barrier Reef. We decided to take Claire to the movies, and we even decided to leave the women at home. I know. I know. This is a scary concept for two men and a three year old girl. But you know what? I lived to write about it.

She has had a strange affinity for Horton Hears a Who ever since she had Horton pancakes for her birthday in April, so we figured she’d sit through this one without any problem. Boy was I wrong.

Fortunately the film was playing at the dollar theatre (why do we all still call it that when it’s like $3 dollars now?) so if we missed part of the movie, we’d live. The opening credits proved that the theatre obviously needed to charge us even more to replace the sound system and screens. They were terrible, but hey, preschoolers don’t care! Claire loudly announced that she had to go potty early on, and she demanded that Papa take her. So they trudged up the aisle around all the other parents and kids. I continued to watch the giant jungle elephant (what’s an elephant doing in the jungle?) as he found a microcosm society and a fleck of who knows what. It was mildly amusing, and Big Sky made it so it couldn’t be too bad.

Claire came back. She sat a nanosecond, tried to stand up to walk around, wanted to shove past us (we were deliberately on either side of her), and eventually announced that she was hungry! Yes, ladies and gents, the exclamation point is hers, not mine. I offered to run out and find her a pretzel, but I would’ve rather watched the film. My father-in-law jumped up, grabbed,  and took her instead.

They eventually came back with a huge pretzel that felt a little crunchy to me as I held it for her. She kept grabbing at it, and part of it ended up on the floor as the kangaroo employed a giant silly vodka swilling vulture to kill the elephant, eat the speck (dirt?), and the vomit it up. (Don’t ask).

As the climax rolled up towards the end of the movie (no the vulture does not succeed), Claire announced that she was going home. She immediately stood up with full disregard for all of us who just had to find out if all the whos in Whoville would ever have faith in their goofy, too-much-to-live-up-too, virile (for some reason the dude had like 99 daughters, and I can barely handle one!) mayor. (They do! Hey it’s Dr Seuss for ya!) My father-in-law who I knew would be happier at home watching the golf channel than this film, took Claire’s hand (looking relieved for an excuse to get out of there), and pulled her into the lobby. I watched the end of the film, and made my way out to the lobby where my kid was playing DDR and Guitar Hero.

Go Figure.