Blindsided

A sage once said, “An idle brain is the devil’s workshop.” If true, the devil will have a tough time setting up shop in my daughter’s brain. I don’t think her mind ever shuts down. Almost since birth, her middle name has been “Go!” When she stops it’s only to think of where next to go or what next to do.

In some ways I’m glad she doesn’t live in Pontotoc, for if she did, she’d keep me far busier doing things she wanted me to do than is my present situation. The seventy miles that separate us is a buffer zone, but sometimes I get blindsided by an unexpected request.

When I read her post on Facebook, Saturday afternoon, stating she was enjoying being off work and had plans to shop in Tupelo, I felt relatively safe from what are often schemes of hers that involve her dad. My world, Wayne’s World if you care to think of it as such, turned rather nicely until about three-thirty Saturday afternoon.

I knew by the ring-tone on my wife’s cell phone that Rayanne was calling, so as the conversations are often of a mother/daughter nature, I scarcely listened to what my wife was saying until the phone was thrust in my face.

“It’s Rayanne,” Barbara stated, “talk to her.”

Well, maybe that’s not the exact words, but that’s what I heard, once the words were filtered by my brain. About the same time I took the phone, a neighbor rang our doorbell, so I had good reason to cut short the phone conversation.

“We’re all in Tupelo,” Rayanne said, “and, everyone wants to go see The Blind Side after we eat. Do you and Mama want to meet us?”

Neither Barbara nor I were bathed and dressed for going out, so I responded we’d talk it over and get back to her. Anyway, going to movies is not something I do with any regularity. Let’s see, Barbara and I went to see The Sound of Music in our early years of marriage and took our small children to see Herbie Rides Again, the last movie I remember viewing in a theater, but I’ve possibly been to one since and don’t remember it.

With the coldest night of the year just hours ahead, going out into the frigid night air to see a movie was not something I desired to do. But, my intuition told me I had better go, as I knew my wife wanted to see the movie, and I have since been lambasted for not taking her to the inflatable city at Cotton Plant during the Christmas season.

Theaters have changed quite a bit from my adolescent years, and I surely don’t remember climbing steps that led anywhere except to a balcony. The Malco in Tupelo is one of those new-fangled, multi-screen theaters. We walked up stairs so we could descend to the desired level to view the movie.

Upon being seated I was glad I had worn several layers of clothing to protect me from the cold outside that had somehow seeped inside. I had stuffed a pair of cotton gloves into a pocket of my jacket, mainly for use going to and from my car. Little did I know they would be all that stood between my fingers and frostbite…inside the theater. For the next two hours, I sat miserably cold, weighing the pros and cons of my decision to make my wife happy. In the past, I have spent two hours being colder and more miserable, but that would have been on a deer stand back in the days when I went deer hunting.

The movie…oh, it was good as movies go, and I could understand most of the dialog. Being an Ole Miss alum, I took pleasure in the story of a former Ole Miss athlete, whose wife was an Ole Miss cheerleader, and who together helped change the life of a Black youth who eventually became an All American tackle at Ole Miss and is now playing professionally for the Baltimore Ravens.

It was a heartwarming movie, and I enjoyed it to the extent that circumstances allowed. I have no plans to see another movie this winter, but having been blindsided once, it could happen again.

By Wayne Carter