So there we were, hanging out on a Saturday night, when one of us said, “Hey, let’s go to the movies!” Simple as that.

“I just have to change—I’ll be two minutes,” said I, knowing even as that estimate escaped my lips that it was absurd: at my age and stage of life, it takes at least half an hour to repair, camouflage and primp. Who was I kidding?

So the familiar scenario began: my husband pacing in the kitchen, checking his watch, while I dashed about holding a hair blower with one hand, a pair of jeans in the other.

By the time we slammed the kitchen door shut and jumped into the car, the tension was escalating, just as it has for decades. Punctuality—his view vs. mine—is our marital Waterloo.

“The movie starts at 7:25,” said my beloved through clenched teeth. “We’ll never make it.”

This is a man who would happily have been sitting in the lobby an hour in advance, tickets in hand, if not for his perennially late wife, who earnestly believes that missing the first few minutes of anything is no big deal.

Try to estimate our compatibility quotient…

At 7:15, we entered the parking lot of a movie complex and realized in an instant that some mania had seized our entire community. Everyone, it seemed, had decided that this was the Saturday night to head for the movies, and cars were snaking their way around the lot ready to do mortal battle for a spot.

“There’s one!” I said triumphantly, just as someone else eased into it. Never mind what my beloved had to say about that.

It was clearly time to do some strategic planning. As my husband circled the entrance to the complex, I jumped off to get into the ticket line. But so did nearly every other spouse/companion in sight. So much for inspired ideas.

Then there was the small matter of managing to locate my ticket-sharer in the vast lobby with its sections for ticket holders and ticket buyers. I thought we might never see one another again, and would wander into eternity among people in the same boat who were calling, “Harry, where are you?” “Lois, here I am!”

Ah, Saturday night at the movies!

When we finally found each other, I had to break the news that the film we’d wanted to see was—well, sold-out. And that we were now signed up—make that paid up—for the romantic comedy that he had said didn’t interest him a bit.

His face spoke volumes.

At the door of Theater #8, we paused, braced for the next challenge: my first mate likes seats up-close-and-personal. I prefer to be a discreet distance from the screen. But as it turned out, there was no problem at all: the ONLY seats we were getting for our eight bucks were practically inside the screen.

The enchantment still wasn’t over. There was the small matter of popcorn. He was planning to get some, so I hissed something about his abandoned diet, and he hissed something back about my minding my own business about diets, his or mine.

When he returned, bearing his prize, I wouldn’t fill him in on what he’d missed. Spiteful? You bet.

The sulking quotient was so high that not even the romantic romp on the screen could touch it.

Somehow, the film failed to live up to its advance billing.

Somehow, I got gum on the sole of my shoe on the way out of the theater.

And of course, we couldn’t find the car in the endless aisles of the parking lot, nearly getting killed as we roamed.

But I’m happy to report that in the end, we did reach harmony on one point: Next time, we stay home and rent a video. . pinegander@aol.com