Of all the things I had contemplated as possibly triggering a second heart attack, I never considered going to the movies as that trigger č until I went to see “Hop” at Cinema 7 in Washington a little more than a week ago.

That cinematic excursion cost me just under $20. And at that price, I will refer to it as a cinematic excursion instead of referring to it as going to the movies. That high cost deserves a highfalutin’ description.

I recall a time when going to the movies didn’t require taking out a second mortgage. And if it cost right at $20 for just myself to make that cinematic excursion, I shudder to think what it costs a family of four to visit a movie house.

My price of admission, $6, wasn’t too bad. If I had gone later in the day, my ticket would have cost $2.50 more. And when did popcorn’s value by weight become almost equal to that of gold? It cost me $7 and some change for a medium-size bag of popcorn. A medium Sprite cost $5 and some change. Less than two minutes after purchasing my ticket and visiting the snack bar/highway robbery stand, all that was left of that $20 bill was one lonely dollar bill and some change, very little change.

I did not buy any candy, in part because I was following doctor’s orders, but also because I would have had to sell some blood to get the money to pay for that candy,.

If you ever see an armored car pull up at a theater, don’t assume it’s dropping off money or picking up money. More than likely that armored car is being used to transport popcorn, soft drinks and candy to the theater.

Although it had been about two years since I visited Cinema 7, I knew ticket prices and concession-stand prices had gone up significantly. For the amount of money I spent that afternoon, I could have gone to the movies and “splurged” at least nine times when I was a boy.

For less than a dollar, I could buy a ticket, soft drink (Dr Pepper was my preference when at the movies) and box of popcorn. If I opted to buy some boiled peanuts from The Peanut Man before I entered the theater’s lobby, the cost for my afternoon at the Florida Theater in downtown Pensacola, Fla., would increase to about $1.50 cents. If I bought a box of Whoppers on my way out of the theater after the movie, my cost for the afternoon would jump to $1.75.

Today, with a little luck, I possibly could buy a squirt of butter with that $1.75 č no popcorn, just a lonesome squirt of butter. Then again, most movie theaters don’t provide real, melted butter for popcorn anymore. These days, it’s some sort of flavored canola oil or similar concoction that gets squirted on the popcorn.

Yes, I know, canola oil is better for my health, but popcorn without real butter is like the Lone Ranger without Tonto or Dorothy without Toto: it’s just not right.

As for a 56-year-old man choosing “Hop” as the subject of his cinematic excursion, well, all I can say is I was scouting for the next main ingredient for my next dish of barbecued rabbit, known as “lepus chocolatus,” which is Latin, or Southern Latin, for “rabbit with chocolate sauce.”

Mike Voss covers the city of Washington for the Washington Daily News. The last time it cost him less than $3 to see a movie was when he viewed “Night of the Lepus” in 1972. It was a flick about giant rabbits that got “barbecued” at movie’s end.