Alone At The Drive-In

Imagine if you will an old drive-in movie theater in the middle of the country with all of the lights turned out and everyone gone home. Dark, deserted and spooky; the signs of a classic horror movie. This was exactly where I found myself at 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning. My faithful sidekick Lady sat in the car while I used the only possible lights, my car’s headlights, to look around, keeping an eye on the pitch-black concession stand, an abandoned white van and the dogs who were scavenging food.

A bunch of us had gone to the Midway Drive-in earlier that evening to watch the adventures of Herbie the Love Bug and a second feature. When I arrived home around 2 a.m., I realized my phone had not made the trip with me. After searching my car and another, it was pretty evident the phone never made it out of the drive-in. And I began to worry about ever finding the phone again.

I borrowed a friend’s cell phone and made the 30-minute drive back to the drive-in, calling local police to see if they had any advice in case the place was locked up. One officer told me, “if you trespass, you will be arrested,” which only added to my anxiety. My plan was to hopefully appeal to workers that may still be there cleaning up. If not, I’d leave a note begging the employees to call me the next day.

As I neared the spot, a car was on the side of the road and as I passed, it pulled behind me. I pulled in the drive-in’s driveway and the car kept going and I noticed a side driveway to the office/owner’s home. I rang the doorbell and knocked, waking a very kind man from his slumber and told him of my dilemma. It was a good thing because he said the alarms would have alerted him to me being on the grounds.

A few minutes later, my phone, already covered in dew, was in my hand and I headed back down the road to Cleveland for a partial night’s rest.

As I got out of the car at that creepy drive-in, I did think to when people tell me, “that’s what you get for watching scary movies.” Then I thought, “I don’t know of many people who’d do this, whether they watched scary movies or not.” Maybe I was used to it or maybe I was just too focused on the phone to get creeped out . . . too much.