Fast forward a couple of weeks. Jeanell and I had been wanting to go and see "Michael" and Lila was working so we planned a little date night to go see it. Usually we would go to one of the Salt Lake area theatres, but remembering that I needed to exchange those shoes decided we could kill two birds with one stone (sorry PETA) and go see the movie in Davis County, exchanging the shoes beforehand.
Most of the time, I go to the Megaplex website to find a theatre, and if I had on this occasion, I would have discovered that there was a Megaplex theatre less than a mile from the running store we needed to visit. But for whatever reason, this time I went to the Cinemark website, saw that "Michael" was playing at the one in Farmington, and purchased tickets for the 6:25 show.
We left Grantsville at about 5, which didn't leave us a ton of time to make the shoe exchange. I had seen the Megaplex theatre when we got off the freeway and even though I'd already bought tickets at the theatre in Farmington, thought again about buying tickets for the 7:00 show at the Megaplex just to give us a little more time, but Jeanell said we'd be fine.
We went to the running store and made our exchanges, which took a minute because they ultimately couldn't order the shoes I needed through their vendors. We left for Farmington a little later than planned but still in time to take the movie.
Of course, when we arrived in Farmington we wanted some snacks, and pizzas, but the pizzas had to be cooked, which took a few minutes. We didn't end up getting into the theatre until after the scheduled start time, but with all of the previews, were there in plenty of time to see the movie.
The movie was good and we both enjoyed it. I have some conflicting thoughts about the topic in general and how appropriate it is to have a celebratory movie about a person credibly accused of the things that Michael was, but that's a topic for another time. For now, we just enjoyed the movie and the music.
Following the movie, we still had some pizza and popcorn that we were planning to take home, but each needed to use the restroom so we took turns. While Jeanell was in the restroom, I had the popcorn bag balancing on top of the pizza box, but took a misstep and tipped the box, spilling almost all of the popcorn onto the floor. A woman and her granddaughter had walked past me just as I spilled the popcorn and I hear the granddaughter ask her grandma if it had been their fault as they walked away. It was not.
Jeanell came out of the restroom, looked at me, looked at the mostly empty popcorn bag, looked at the popcorn strewn all over the floor, then back at me. Our eyes met and we both burst out laughing. When I came out of the restroom, a theatre employee was in the hall sweeping up the popcorn. I felt bad.
Finally, we headed outside and back to our car, but as we walked past P. F. Chang's, I saw one of my good friends, Shelly Anderson Neilson, who had just left the restaurant.
I mentioned Shelly in my post about my friend George back in 2024. We first met at Engineering State up at USU between our Junior and Senior years of high school (summer of 1994). We were friends all through college. Shelly was a dynamo who knew everyone and was involved in everything. While I was in Mexico City on my mission, she was elected as USU's student-body president. We were great friends but hadn't seen each other in person (at least that I recall) since my and Jeanell's wedding in May of 2000.
I met Shelly's husband Reid, whom I had never met. We talked briefly about Ed and Cindy Cole serving in their mission while Reid and Shelly served as mission presidents. We talked about Shelly trying to attend my farewell back in 1996, but getting lost and missing it. I told Shelly and Reid about helping a friend find a talk given at BYU, which turned out to have been given by Reid, who quoted extensively from a message Shelly had given while they served as mission presidents (tl;dr: this is exactly what you signed up for, Shelly can get you a sticker). We talked about my recent mishap in the produce department at Soelbergs.
Jeanell knows Shelly as well. When Jeanell and I first started dating, we went to USU's homecoming with a group that included Shelly. We only talked for a few minutes, but it was fun to run into her and visit, albeit briefly. And then we both went on our way.
As I think back on that night, it was quite a sequence of events that put Jeanell and I passing by P. F. Chang's just as Shelly and Reid were exiting. Some people believe that there are no coincidences, that everything happens for a reason. I, on the other hand, very much believe in coincidences.
But that doesn't make them any less fun.
