How 44 Cents Got Me to Go Into Wal-Mart

Way back in the day, and I do mean WAY back in the day, watching a movie at school was a sight different than these days.


How far back you ask?


Does the quote, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" mean anything to you?


Well, back up about another 8 years.


Mm, hmm.


Anyway, as I was saying, if a teacher was to show a movie to a class, it involved a number of things:


1st) It was a movie.  On a reel.  On a projector.  Shining up on a big pull-down screen.  Not a DVD on a television set.  A real reel movie.  Said teacher had to know how to thread the real reel film on the real reel properly before she could graduate from college with her teaching degree and become Miss 1st Grade Teacher.


2nd) We had to go down to the auditorium to be able to watch this movie.  Not room enough in the classroom for younguns AND all of that equipment.


3rd) Miss Teacher had to plan way ahead to show this movie because she had to order it from the School-Movie-Ordering-Place, and wait for it to be delivered to her, and she had to reserve the auditorium.

4th)  Said auditorium had wooden foldup seats that were uncomfortable on oh, so many levels.  Not only were they hard, being wood and all, if you slid your 6-year old hiney back too far, it fell down between the top and bottom, and the front part of your seat would fly up.  Leaving you looking alot like Ellen Burnstyn at the beginning of "Walking Across Egypt" when she sat down in her rocking chair that she forgot had a missing seat bottom.  Plus, if you were wearing a little pleated skirt that day, the backs of your 6-year old thighs would stick to that wooden seat and make little suction noises every time you tried to move around.


But getting to watch a movie was a rare thing.  Therefore, it was a really big deal.  


Every year, and I do mean every year, at this time of year, I go right back to that wooden seat in that auditorium.


And I'm watching that little black and white movie we went to watch.


Supposedly, it was all about math.  A little girl went to the store to buy her school supplies.  How much/many of this & that she could buy with the money she had, etc., etc.


I don't remember how much money she had. 


What I do remember was how I wanted to be that little girl in that store, surrounded by all of those pencils and pens and crayons, and paper.  And to be able to buy whatever and as many of those items as I wanted.


Had she been in a toy store, I would have never remembered that film.


But she wasn't in a toy store.


She was in a pencil/pen/crayon/paper store.


And I loved it.


And I wanted to be her.


Which is why I ventured into Wal-Mart last week.


Going into Wal-Mart here is like walking hand in hand with Death itself.


But I went.


Because they have Crayola crayons for 44 cents.


And I'm livin' the dream.