Holy crap! “The Hunger Games” grossed $68 million yesterday. That's the fifth-highest single-day gross ever, after the final “Harry Potter” and the three “Twilight” sequels. “The Dark Knight” is sixth. Apparently boys don't go to movies the way girls do.

I actually tried to go last night. “THG” is playing at Paul Allen's Cinerama, which would be a good theater to see it in, but I was running late. Its early show was too early and its late show was too late, so I decided to choose the lesser, closer theater, Meridian 16 in downtown Seattle, where it was playing every half hour. I was thinking 7:40. But when I arrived at 7:30 that one was sold out. 8:00 wasn't. One, please.

I looked at the ticket, Theater 9, went up two flights, past a long line for the 7:40 show on the second level, and stood in a small line on the third level for the 8:00 show. I hung there for a bit. My mind wandered. Occasionally I'd look down at the second level, see the line stretching there, look at the clock. “They're behind,” I thought. “Twenty minutes or so. That movie should've started already.” It was only near 8:00 that the second-level line moved and disappeared, and our line, the 8:00 line, began to fill up.

Around 8:15 I caught a snippet of a conversation in front of me. “Yes, this is the 8:30 line.” I was about to object when I rechecked my ticket. Theater 9? No, Theater 6, dummy! You were looking at it upside-down. You should've been in the line a floor below. The one that disappeared 15 minutes ago.

So I retreated to the first floor and tried buying a ticket for the show I'd been standing in line for. Nope. All sold out untl 9:30, which was too late for this bag of bones. I headed home in defeat. But I'll try to see it sometime this weekend.

God, the things girls make me do.

Between “Hunger Games” and Pixar's “Brave,” will this be our summer of girls with bows?

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