I have this feeling that there’s gonna be something in our popcorn,” Max said. He, Jaycie, and I had just piled into Ruby and were on our way to “Madagascar.”
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just have a feeling that there might be something in our popcorn.”
“There’s not going to be anything in our popcorn,” I said. “Skip this song.”

Since Max got stuck in the middle, he got to control Roland. He skipped to “Wide Open Spaces” by the Dixie Chicks. For the rest of the ride, Jaycie and I sang along as loud as we could. Well, she sang as loud as she could. I tried to be a little quieter so I could hear her sing. It was divine.

The moment we pulled into the movie theater parking lot the heavens opened up and big buckets of rain poured down on us. We ran into the theater dripping. If we would have had time, I would have went into the bathroom to wring out my shirt. There was no time; we had to get popcorn and soda.

“Can we get candy instead of popcorn?” Jaycie asked.
“Sure, if that’s what you want,” I said.
“I want popcorn!” Max shouted. “POPCORN. We have to get popcorn.”
“Candy!” Jaycie said. “What do you want Aunt Jodi?”
“Popcorn.”
“But I want candy!” Jaycie said.
“How about we get popcorn and then ice cream after dinner?” I asked.
“Okay,” she said.

So we order the large popcorn, which is roughly the size of Max and two large fruit punches.

“Who wants to carry the popcorn?” I ask.
“I do!” Max said.

Of course, since we were late we had to stumble dripping and shivering from the rain, to our seats. We finally sit down as the previews are playing and Max shouts “THERE’S SOMETHING IN OUR POPCORN.”
“What?” I stage whisper.
“Aunt Jodi there’s something in our popcorn,” he said.
“Is it alive?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Why would it be alive?”
“So it’s not a bug,” I said.
“No it’s paper,” he said, digging the paper out of the popcorn. “Open it up Aunt Jodi.”

I unrolled the grease-stained paper to see that it’s a drawing.
“It says ‘hank you, I love you’,” Max said.
“It does?”
“Yes,” he said. “It also has stars on it, because I know how to do stars now.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I love you too.”

And I was glad it was dark in the theater so nobody could see me cry before the movie even started.