Movie Theater Phenomena

Movie theaters are strange worlds. It is as if they are a society all their own. Movie theaters are a strange hybrid between the private individual's living room and a public arena where hundreds of people are crammed together unnaturally.

This can only result in lawlessness, savagery and guerilla warfare.

And for some reason once I leave one, battle-weary and thoroughly beaten, I forget how bad it is.

Last night I entered into battle once again in the hopes of seeing Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy fall in love again. Surely a Sunday night crowd would be thinner and slightly more mature than a Friday or Saturday night group. Filled with people who either did not have to get up early the next morning (husband) for school or work and people who were grown-up enough to set their own curfews and knew they could function on only a few hours of sleep (me). Certainly those gimmee-gimmee monsters found in throngs any other night would not deign to show up on a Sunday. Saturday night is for being seen and admired, Sunday is for stomping around in pj's and fluffy bunny slippers.

Or not.

We find a seat, ironically not in our normal spot, the theater is surprisingly full - but being a girl kind of a flick - it's full with a lot of women wearing no make-up. I am among them, but I brought my arm candy with me - grudgingly.

"Popcorn sounds good" says the candy.

I drop off my coat and skip off to the concessions. As always there are many long lines all waiting at stations that are not manned. I bounce from back of one line to back of another trying to find one that actually serves people. All the while I eye the teenagers who are busy chatting about how "Brad is a jerk" and no about "What kind of candy Mr. Brad wants." Just as I'm about to get annoyed at the lack-luster customer service I find someone working with no line in front of her. As she scurries off to fill up the sodas and popcorn bag I collect napkins, straws and scope out where the salt and butter station is.

I always wondered who thought it was a good idea to only have one butter tin and one salt shaker in a movie theater that announces "30,000 customers a month." Perhaps if there were two of each, or maybe three, congestion at the condiment counter would be lessened. Like opening the stupid middle lane on the freeway during rush hour. You can't be saving that much money by not buying ONE MORE SALT SHAKER!

Regardless of the theaters accounting skills, one is all you have to work with, so you make a plan. Scope it out, find the line that's most organized, as soon as you get the bag, make a bee-line. I scooped it out and was pleasantly surprised to find only one man currently salting up his snack. Piece of cake, by the time my credit card is back in my hand he'll be done. I'll shake a little on then skip on back to catch the trailers. (I like the trailers.)

Except as I'm standing there, not more than four feet away I watch as he shakes the salt, shakes it some more, looks at the shaker, looks around his shoulder then walks away with shaker in hand.

My head nearly does a Linda Blair as I watch him confidently, knowingly walk away with what is probably the only container of salt you'll find in the whole damn theater.

And he knows it. This was no slip of the mind. He didn't walk away not realizing he was still holding the thing. He was salting as he was walking. He even looked around to see if the coast was clear.

I consider running after him and somehow injuring his yuppy pride by commenting loudly on the jerk-offishness that is he and his salt-shaker-stealing breathren...but the teenager behind the counter has my credit card still - and if you can't leave a salt-shaker unattended then I sure as heck ain't leaving my credit card behind.

I chew on why someone thinks it's okay to steal salt while I walk back to my seat. Once again I think of the innocent excuses, but none of them fit with the scene. No, he deliberately took that salt, and he knew he was depriving others of the use of it. The thing is I don't think he was guilty, or ashamed. I think he thought he deserved to take the salt back, that is was his right and other people would just have to deal. I've never thought that, I've never thought that I should have something to the detriment of others. Sure I've thought I deserved something more than someone else did, but I didn't want the other person to be deprived, I just wanted everyone to get their just desserts. And quite frankly if we're all paying $5 for a bag of popcorn, we all deserve use of the salt.

I ask my husband why he thinks it happened.

"People are idiots." he replies.

But somehow that doesn't work, he wasn't an idiot, he knew what he was doing was going to piss people off. That's why he made sure no one important was watching. Of course he missed me, but I'm a girl, and timid, and I think he knew I wouldn't pop him in the jaw over a salt-shaker. I'm not like him.

No I think that movie theaters bring out the worst in people. Behaviors that are okay when at home, like taking the salt into the living room with your pot pie, are suddenly manifesting in public. We sit in a dark room doing the same activity we do at home - staring at a screen. At home we pick up the phone, make ourselves a snack, talk into our pillows, so why not in a theater. It's dark, we're tricked into thinking we're living in a different world, so we don't notice there are other people sitting around us. We don't realize that when we put our feet up on the seat in front of us, we end up kicking someone's head. At home we never kick someone in the head when we put our feet up.

And of course when we're confronted with our lapse in etiquette we get defensive. How dare someone ask that I not talk on my cellphone, I talk on my cellphone all the time at home - and I watch t.v. doing it.

No people are idiots, they're just confused. Movie theaters mess with our heads, they make us forget who we are, where we are, how to behave. It's all fantasy and no one ever has a fantasy about waiting for other people and having to be more considerate. We want to be the prince and princesses, not the maids and butlers.

On the other hand, I hope salt-shaker-stealer guy has a prince of a heart attack. And they bury him with a pepper mill.