a peek inside the fishbowl

(Continued from here.)

When’s the last time you’ve been to a drive-in movie? When I first moved to Ottawa the Coliseum on Carling Avenue used to be a drive-in theatre called the Britannia Drive-in. According to this wikipedia entry it closed in 1996.

After our chat the other day Bruce Deachman was kind enough to email me some photos. He’s kindly given me permission to post a couple of them here. Here’s one taken from the top of the movie screen looking out toward the lot and the concession stand:

And the concession stand itself:

I remember going to the drive-in when I was a kid, happily pj-clad while watching a movie in the back of my friend’s family station wagon (wood panelled, of course), and falling asleep on the drive home.

Sadly, drive-in theatres are a dying breed around here. That’s why we took a trip to the Port Elmsley Drive In near Smiths Falls. I’ve been eager to recreate the drive-in experience for Emma and Sarah so making an entire day out of it was a small price to pay for what would surely be a memorable, nay, life-altering experience.

As we sped away from Perth down the pretty highway I was practically writing this post in my head. It was going to be a lovely clear night. The girls were going to play on the swings and before the movie began, and then tired and happy, they were going to settle in the back seat of our ’99 Mazda Protege (sans wood panelling) and watch the movie while eating copious amounts of fresh popcorn.

We arrived a shade early so we went to check out a nearby lock, part of the Rideau Canal which I think is called the Beveridges Lock. I’m glad we did.

I watched swallows catching bugs in mid-air as the sun sank lower towards the horizon. There were boats parked in the canal:

… and the girls happily walked the narrow bridge crossing from one side to the other.

After awhile we decide to make our way to the drive-in and snag a good spot.

(TIP #1: Park your car so your front tires are on TOP OF the grassy slope. It ensures a better view.)

We were one of the first cars to arrive. We took this opportunity to enlist the girls to help clean the windshield (which was littered with bug corpses from our drive to Perth.)

The lot soon started to fill up. The girls played in the 1969-era park (complete with metal slide and swings) and picked clover blossoms:

That’s when Mark noticed that almost every single car was covered in a giant mosquito net. We laughed – LAUGHED – at these crazy bug-phobic moviegoers.

And then the sun set.

(photoshop artistry by Mark!)

Cue the bugs. The mosquitos began to POUR INTO THE CAR. Watching them fly over the top of my open window was like watching water slip over a rock in the middle of a rushing river. I sat there, first in dumb amazement followed by a frenzy of slapping.

We were sitting ducks, or as someone pointed out to me later, easy targets cowering in our own miserable little bunker.

(TIP #2: Trust the locals. THEY KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING.)

(TIP #3: Invest in mosquito netting. Like this. Or something like this. Or spray yourself top to bottom with DEET.)

We had nothing. No bug spray, no citronella coils, no netting. It was just us, trapped in our own car, stinking of the heat of the summer. The news was out and we were bait.

The only thing we could do was roll up the windows.

Guess what happened then? It took surprisingly few minutes before it got hot in the car and we steamed up the windows, totally unable to see. We rolled down the windows to let some fresh air in. Dusk was over, Mark mused aloud. The mosquitoes would probably be gone. Right?

Ha ha. No.

They were just waiting for us.

We rolled the windows up again. And then we had to start the car to clear the front window, which we had to do periodically otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to see the movie.

(TIP #3: Fellow movie goers do not like it when you start the car during the feature movie. Not only is it noisy, but your daytime running lights can be very distracting.)

(TIP #4: Deploy your emergency parking brake (a.k.a your hand brake) to prevent your daytime running lights from turning on while you start the car.)

As if this all wasn’t bad enough, someone in the car (it wasn’t me) decided to take their shoes off and unleash their stinky feet.

Imagine this scene, will you? Shall we review?

Hot stinky car. Mosquitos. Itchy bites. Foggy front window.

All this happened within the first 15 minutes of the film, which was something about guinea pigs. I was feeling pretty miserable. My ankles were being ravaged by mosquitoes I hadn’t managed to kill and no amount of popcorn was going to cheer me up.

The girls didn’t seem to notice that all of this was going on. They happily accepted the periodic turning on/turning off of the car and the renegade mosquitoes concentrated on me and didn’t make it into the back seat.

They happily munched on their popcorn and followed the story about crime-fighting guinea pigs.

You’re probably wondering what the benefits are to going to a drive-in theatre. Well, there are a few.

1. 1) It’s cheap.
2. 2) Parents with infants can easily catch a movie while the kids snooze in their car seats. And as long as your windows are rolled up no one will be able to hear a fussy baby.
3. 3) There is food on site but you can bring a picnic dinner to eat or combine it with a trip to Perth like we did (just pick a better restaurant).

I might attempt to do this next summer. But next time I’m bringing bug spray AND the netting. I wouldn’t think of going without them.