Because Mosquitoes Weren't Bad Enough, God Smote Us with Vinyl Flooring

I intensely dislike installing flooring, but we have to rework the snack bar to make it social-distancing friendly, which sounds almost oxymoronic. So, I'm on what's left of my knees, making the tiles we scored from Halabut for Huge Manities fit, somehow, with the old tiles. I'm not good at it. And it's hot.    But, it is all part of the process of getting ready to have people back in the Darkside. We put in a spiffy new entrance door and upgraded the restrooms, to name just a couple of improvements. Oh, and laid new flooring. If all goes well and the onslaught of complications that is 2020 keeps to a dull roar, we should be open for private shows soon.    We have some unique challenges at the Darkside when it comes to reopening. We have small auditoriums. So, to conform to current social distancing models, we'd be able to host only a few people per room. That doesn't quite work with any of our plans to stay in business. But we CAN offer private screenings to members of the same household. People who already share space and air can (usually) be safe watching a movie in one of our auditoriums. See? Brilliant. We're hammering out the price structure now, so stay tuned.    The bigger theaters can pull seats and make lots of room for people to float by each other and not share germs. Such modifications have proven to work well for a lot of cinemas. We get asked a lot why is so-and-so open, but we aren't. First and foremost, we'd rather not get you sick. Everything else is an offshoot of that. I'm a pretty clever guy and been doing this awhile. You can believe that as soon as I figure out a safe way to open that complies with what the folks with name badges and clipboards will bless (and my common sense) we'll be welcoming you back.

We closed the doors on March 17th, in the year of "My Dear Lord, What the Hell Did We Do to Offend Thee for You to Deliver this Pestilence Upon Us?"—or, as some of us refer to it: 2020. When we switched off the open sign, it was supposed to be for three weeks. You know, about the time it would have taken to handle this virus if everyone just played nice at home. Say, like a lot of other countries. Sucks to be us. Meanwhile, the Darkside is doing things to make sure you know we are still here, using wisely the money you folks gave up for gift certificates, t-shirts, or just because you wanted to make sure we knew you still believed in us. We’ve been selling popcorn and soda for pick-up on the weekends and offering virtual cinema films you can reach through the listings on our website. And while all that is happening, I get to roll in the flooring adhesive. Seriously, every time I stand up I have like six tools stuck to me.

This is all to say; we are still here. We are plugging along, making the Darkside 2.0 safe and every bit that which made the pre-COVID Darkside a part of this community for a quarter-century. Damn, I'm old. We soldier on. Cinemas are among those at the back of the line of businesses that will be allowed to open. Most theaters are not easily convertible into a place that can keep people out of each other's air space. So, we'll wait. While doing so, we'll be doing the work we need to do to have people enjoying movies again in a place that is part of our community. Safely.   Speaking of flooring adhesive, we finally got that atrocious grey carpet out of the women's restroom and laid in some snazzy tile. We had to make do with the colours they had at Habitat ReStore, but my general lack of style cleared the way to get the job done without consideration for more traditional decorating esthetics. Seriously, we should sell tickets for a peek at that floor. There'd have to be a waiver to sign so we are not liable for any injuries caused by vertigo. I look forward to your gasps of horror when we reopen.    Until then, please be safe. All of us at the Darkside miss you crazy kids.