Smuggler’s Run

My favorite memory at the movie theater happened when I was still in elementary school; I had gone out with my childhood friends - a band of brothers, four out of six back then - to see some PG rated film popular that summer. Per custom, we all wore big, bulky jackets despite the heat in order to better hide our contraband candy and soda bottles to sneak past the attendants.

What I did not know was that the second youngest of the brothers (maybe six at the time? the rest of us varied between seven and nine) had decided to smuggle his own popcorn...and had decided the original bag of kernels fit better in his pocket than the final popped product.

His older brothers, of course, had watched him pack without saying a word or even questioning exactly how he intended to pop the kernels once he got them inside. As we walked towards our screen in the megaplex, the eldest brother very carefully tripped the poor lad. As he fell his bag of kernels burst open, spilling un-popped pieces of smuggled popcorn everywhere.

The attendant quickly came over and caught us all red handed, sending us back out to our parent's car to discard our illegal booty including the remaining handfuls of kernels left in the bag. The mother of my friends simply shook her head; with that many sons she'd seen it all at this point.

At least the elder brothers lost their loot too after betraying their own.

I learned a valuable lesson that day.

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If you go to the drive-in they don't care if you smuggle snacks in your car - or unticketed bodies in your trunk.