Tonight Chad and I went to a movie. It had no animation in it whatsoever. No songs and no talking animals. It was a real live movie with real human beings walking around acting all dramatic. It was an extremely rare treat.
As the movie started I realized that two people of the seven who were in the theater were talking. A lot. Loudly. The couple kept discussing what was happening in the movie, and after a particularly dramatic moment on the screen, the man hollered, “DANG!”
Well, he was a big fella, and I wasn’t about to pick a fight with him that would make Chad have to defend my honor. But, pretty much everyone in the theater was sending him death stares through all of the talking.
Finally he settled down and was quiet for a bit. His wife left the theater to get food. Then the snoring started. And, I’m talking about the loudest snoring I’ve ever heard in my life. I even leaned up to look and see if he could actually be asleep or if he was just trying to be annoying. He appeared be sawing logs right there in the middle of a particularly important section of dialog.
His wife came back in, clicking her tongue in a disapproving way as she approached. She woke him up and encouraged him to drink the enormous soft drink she had bought. He drank like he hadn’t had liquid in days.
After a few moments of quiet, the man’s cell phone started ringing. It was one of those rings that played music and then sang, “Answer your phone. Your phone is ringing.” And, it was turned up as loud as it would go. It took him several minutes to push the proper button to make the ringer stop singing. And then HE ANSWERED HIS PHONE. “Hello? Yeah, man, I’m in a movie!”
This whole time my ordinarily freakishly low blood pressure was probably through the roof. Here we were, sitting in a near empty theater watching a movie for the first time in forever, and this talking, snoring, phone answering dude HAD to come in there and sit right next to us.
But, you know what? We had fun anyway. And, to tell the truth, we’ll probably remember forever the night we saw that particular movie because it’s not every day that you get a phone answering snorer for a viewing partner.
I hope he went home and went to bed, since he obviously needed a nap. And some lessons in basic movie-viewing etiquette.
Have you ever witnessed bad behavior in a movie? Did you say anything?
That picture is worth a THOUSAND WORDS…. a hoot. My pet peeve is being in a doctor’s office waiting room where they say to turn off your cell phone, and a priviledged few decide to ignore that.
One of my biggest complaints/concerns is young (under-age) children in movies. R rated films with 3 and 4 year olds, even junior high kids, watching so much violence and adult themes. Totally ruins the movie for me.
I have been in a situation(s) similar to that. One of my friends got up and informed an employee who then came in, witnessed it then ask them to quiet down, another time people were asked to leave and we were refunded our money, actually I think they gave us free movie tickets. It’s frustrating to spend $20 on a movie only to be interrupted. At least at home we are able to pause/rewind when our children, who aren’t old enough to know better, interrupt!!