Pet Peeve #872

Theatre Etiquette.

Specifically, people who talk during movies.

It's one thing to talk through the trailers. I'll give a lot of leeway because everyone is getting settled in and the lights are usually on, so that's cool. But when those lights dim, and I'm ready to be transported to another world so that I can forget, for just a few hours, that my dog just shat another partially-digested thong or my roof needs replacing, and you're still running your mouth off about all-inclusives in Cuba or whether cherry or banana Popsicles are better (banana, everyone knows that) well, that drives me batty.

You're not sitting in your rec room with your big screen TV so please, with all due respect, STFU.

I have no mercy in my heart for these people. Especially:

1. Those eejits who lean over to their companions and guess, within earshot of several rows, what the hero is about to do.

2. Those eejits who repeat what the hero just did. You know, that bit of action we just watched onscreen together, mere seconds ago.

3. Those eejits who give advice to characters as though those characters onscreen can hear them. "Don't go down that hallway, don't go...oh my," then they usually revert to rule #2, "Tch. She went down the hallway. Can you believe it?"

4. Those eejits like the woman who sat directly behind me and broadcast in a stage whisper to her husband what was about to happen because she'd already seen the movie.

5. I'd like to add people who unroll candies with exaggerated slowness as though we can't hear what they're doing because they're doing it Really Slowly, but I won't. Sure they're annoying or possibly just hard of hearing, but not deserving of Theatre Outrage.

6. People who pile their purses/coats etc. on the chair next to them in an attempt to block someone sitting there when the theatre is full. Come on. You're fooling no one with that ploy. There was a woman last week who, when I sat in front of her, put her (I feel compelled to add here the descriptive 'stripper shoes' as in giant wooden heels and ankle strapped) shoes up on the back of the seat as a "silent" protest. I would have stuck it out through sheer stubborness, but she also couldn't stop talking. I moved back a row, then took secret delight when a rather large and pungent man inched past me to sit directly beside Stripper Shoes (forcing her to move her purse, see how that doesn't work?) And then another geezer, much taller than me, shuffled into the seat directly in front of her, the one I had just vacated. Karma. It's gonna do its thang, baby.

7. Chair kickers. Are you really that dense or do you not care? Do you honestly think I can't feel it when you shift and kick and squirm and cuff the back of my seat repeatedly? If you're that antsy, go to a hockey game.

8. Women with heavy, cloying perfume or men doused in cologne. No one wants to smell you unless you smell like fresh oatmeal cookies. Ugh. I'd rather be locked in a Johnny-on-the-Spot in the noonday sun after an all-you-can-eat Mexican buffet at summer camp.

9. Open mouth chewers who chow down on Nachos. Also, someone rooting around the bottom of a popcorn bag. And honestly, what are you going to get out of that besides a new filling for the cracked molar you're going to be spitting into your palm?

10. People who make or receive phone calls, or who text their friends because they can't stand to be out of the (imagined) loop for more than 90 minutes. Unless you're a transplant surgeon and some nurse is holding a cooler with a brain on ice and is summoning you to the O.R., turn it off people. (Yes, I know you can't transplant brains. It's just a dream I have sometimes, usually when someone is talking behind me in a movie theatre. "Hand me a scalpel and a melon baller, STAT!")

Which brings me back to the talkers. A theatre in Texas has had the cojones to address this issue.

I heart this theatre. If this theatre was my boyfriend, I'd do everything it asked of me, that's how much I heart this theatre. I'd marry it and have ten thousand of its babies if I could. (Name that movie.) I'd bring it breakfast in bed and while it was sipping the cappuccino I made with a leaf design in the foam and pulling apart a warm croissant, I'd rub its feet, even if it had callouses.

(I've tried to adjust the width to make it easier to read, but it's not working, so if you want to read it on a larger screen, just double click on it.)


thanks Martha W. for the link!

What do you think? Would you stand up and cheer? I would. But I'm guessing you already figured that out.

If you want to read an article about it, go HERE