she put the mis in les mis

I went to see Les Miserables today with my friend and her daughter.

The movie was wonderful.  It's probably not for everyone, but I loved it.  And it's a musical, which is awesome.  I love a musical.

It's been out for several weeks now & we went to the matinee, so we figured it would not be very crowded.  However, the theater was pretty full.  Mostly older people who, like us, waited in order to avoid the annoying crowds.

But you know what they say.

There's one in every crowd.

Annoying person, that is.

And this annoying person in the crowd happened to sit directly behind my friend.

You know the sound that a nylon puffy coat makes?  schwishee schwishee schwishee

Times that by like 100 super fast.  schwishee schwishee schwishee schwishee schwishee

The person behind us (let's call her Bertha).... Bertha had taken off her nylon puffy coat and placed it over her legs like a blanket.  Her knees were right behind our heads.

A few minutes into the movie the schwishing began.

It was like Bertha had restless leg syndrome.  In both legs.

She would schwishee schwishee for a minute.  Then stop.

Then it would happen again.

I looked at my friend to see if maybe I was the only one that could hear this.  One look at her face confirmed that she was ready to pull out her hair.

We both turned around discreetly and gave her a dirty look looked at her meaningfully hoping she would get the hint.

She stopped for a nanosecond.

Then, schwishee schwishee schwishee schwishee.

I turned around.  I looked at Bertha, smiled and said in a low voice, "Dude."  Clearly, she had to know that this was annoying.  At this point my friend was leaning forward as far as she could in her seat to escape the schwishing.

She stopped.  For another nanosecond.

Then, schwishee schwishee schwishee schwishee.

Finally, I turned around and gently placed my hand on her knee and I said, "You're driving us nuts," as nicely as I possibly could.

Bertha gave me a blank stare, and I smiled as if to say, "I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you didn't hear me say "dude" earlier and that maybe you haven't noticed that your legs rubbing against your jacket is about to start a fire."

Sweet silence.  For a second.

Then, schwishee schwishee schwishee schwishee.

REALLY?

Did this girl really just ignore my polite request to stop schwishing in our ears during the best parts of the movie?

She did.

And I let it go.

Because it was Les Mis.

It's what Jean Valjean would have done, right?