Let's Go Fly a Kite!

     Like many women my age, I am a huge fan of Mary Poppins.  Before it was common for children to watch the same movie dozens of times at home, I begged my mother to take me to the movie theater to see Mary Poppins on the big screen.  Like millions of other girls, I thought Mary was practically perfect in every way.
     When the live theater production came to Chicago a few years ago, some girlfriends and I made the trip.  We loved the show and bought little carpet bag wallet souvenirs and Mary Poppins t-shirts.
     I was an easy mark when they advertised the Sing-A-Long Mary Poppins at the Wilmette Theater.  If you've never heard of this concept before, it's a special version of the movie with all the words to the songs subtitled so that everyone can sing along.  When the Sing-A-Long Sound of Music first came to the Music Box Theater in Chicago, I saw pictures of fans decked out in fabulous costumes.  In addition to the obvious von Trapp children, there were dozens of nuns, an alarming number of Nazis, and a couple who came as the Swiss Alps.  It reminded me of the midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in my youth.
     I couldn't wait for Sing-a-Long Mary!  My friend Marti and I got our tickets in advance. I used to have a Mary Poppins hat and an umbrella with a parrot handle, and I searched my attic to find them.
     Marti told me that our Saturday tickets were for 11:00, which I assumed was 11:00 p.m.  But then it turned out they were for 11:00 a.m.
     I picked Marti up at 10:30 and at 10:35 we parked right in front of the Wilmette Theater.  I was delighted to find such a great parking place!  I was expecting a long line of costumed revelers waiting to get inside, but there wasn't one.  We walked right up to the box office and picked up our tickets, confirming with the ticket agent that the show was at 11:00 a.m.  We went inside the theater and discovered we were the only ones there.
     Marti and I laughed and commented that surely more people would come, and in the back of my mind I wondered what we'd do if they didn't.   I liked to sing, but it seemed to me that you need a critical number of people in the theater in order to comfortably sing out loud.  Marti  and I were not enough.
     Slowly, people trickled in.  I was expecting a gaggle of 50-something Mary Poppins groupies like me, but most of the women seemed younger.  Then I noticed that some of them were a LOT younger.  Like seven or eight-years-old.
     About five minutes before 11:00,  a couple dozen families with small children poured into the theater.  Only then did I realize my mistake.
     A teenaged girl introduced herself to the crowd in a not bad English accent, and showed us the choreography for the songs. For example, A Spoon Full of Sugar required us to pantomime eating off a spoon, repeat three times, and then wave our hands over our heads.
     Marti and I practiced these moves without looking at each other.
     The lights went out, and Mary Poppins appeared on screen, and suddenly I didn't care who else was watching.  It was a delightful movie, and I really enjoyed it, although I'd somehow forgotten the storyline--about Mr. Banks losing his job at the bank--which struck a little close to home since the bank where my husband worked had recently closed.  I don't remember having any sympathy for the bankers before.
     Marti and I turned out to be the only grown-ups in the theater without children. I can't imagine what the young mothers thought of us.  I had expected my peers to join me in a nostalgic celebration of my girlhood, and instead found myself the weird old aunt at the kid's party.  The weird old aunt who knew every single word to every single song.
     I'd like to think Mary Poppins would have been proud.