Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Enjoy The Show...
Eventually, you will read the story of how I reached my breaking point and imposed a life-long boycott of the crap-hole masquerading as my local movie theatre.
But first, more random stupidness from these clowns. A few years ago I went to see the pile of crap that was released under the name "The Mod Squad." I don't remember why I went, but I did. That's not the point (but while I'm on the subject, if you're ever sitting around and someone says "Hey, 'The Mod Squad' is on TV tonight," find the nearest heavy object and bludgeon them into unconsciousness with it. They'll thank you later). So I bought my ticket and sat down in the empty theatre. The time came for the previews to start. The screen greeted me with...nothing. I waited a few minutes. Nothing. 10 minutes after the scheduled showtime, I finally figured something was wrong. In hindsight, it was probably God telling me to get out now before I subjected myself to this movie. I ignored all the signs and instead went out to the lobby to find someone. I found the ticket-taker and asked if there was a problem with the movie and he said he'd find out for me. I went back in and sat down. 2 minutes later the manager came in and explained that they hadn't started the movie because they didn't realize they had sold a ticket. Before she went to start it, however, she demanded to see my ticket stub to prove I had paid! I should point out at this time that this was far from a busy evening; I live in a summertime tourist area and this was not the summer. As such, there was maybe a grand total of 50 people in the entire complex. Did not anybody think to ask the moron SELLING the tickets if someone bought a ticket for "The Mod Squad" BEFORE basically accusing said customer of some chicanery? At any rate, I showed her my stub, at which time she said "Thanks," when probably something along the lines of "I'm so sorry I accused you of being a criminal, here's 25 free passes, sir, please don't hold this against us" would have been more appropriate.
One more note before I get to the actual story I've been promising, and I need to preface it with a quick geography lesson. I live at the very southern tip of New Jersey, which is a peninsula. To make traveling a bit easier, there is a ferry which runs from Jersey over to Delaware. Without said ferry, cars coming from the west or south of the Jersey Shore would have to drive many, many hours out of the way to get into Jersey only to have to basically double back down to get to the shore. The ferry enables people to come straight across and saves tons of time. Thousands of people use this ferry every day, and the first thing they see after getting back in their cars and driving off the boat is, you guessed it....the movie theatre. So a little over a year ago, the brain trust that runs the place decided to take advantage of the fact that so many potential new customers were driving right past them every day. Thousands of people driving past every day, on their way to start vacation, most of them with kids in the car. So they did the most logical thing they could think of: THEY TOOK ALL THE NAMES OF THE MOVIES THAT WERE PLAYING OFF THE BIG GLOWING SIGN OUT FRONT. So now, people driving by are greeted by a message that says: "SHOW TIMES POSTED IN WINDOW." Except they don't even keep up on that and letters have fallen off never to be replaced, so it actually says "SHO T MES POS D IN WIN OW." They don't even bother to put their phone number up on the sign, which I guess is for the best since after a day or two there would only be 5 digits up there anyway. Oh, I almost forgot: the theatre is on the OTHER side of the highway from the ferry terminal, so anybody who wanted to go to the window to see what was playing would have to make a U-Turn, and then drive a half-mile back towards the ferry to make ANOTHER U-Turn to get back where they were going in the first place.
Now that I've set the stage as to what complete idiots these people are, tomorrow (I promise) you will finally get the story of what happened that fateful night at "The Matrix Reloaded."
But first, more random stupidness from these clowns. A few years ago I went to see the pile of crap that was released under the name "The Mod Squad." I don't remember why I went, but I did. That's not the point (but while I'm on the subject, if you're ever sitting around and someone says "Hey, 'The Mod Squad' is on TV tonight," find the nearest heavy object and bludgeon them into unconsciousness with it. They'll thank you later). So I bought my ticket and sat down in the empty theatre. The time came for the previews to start. The screen greeted me with...nothing. I waited a few minutes. Nothing. 10 minutes after the scheduled showtime, I finally figured something was wrong. In hindsight, it was probably God telling me to get out now before I subjected myself to this movie. I ignored all the signs and instead went out to the lobby to find someone. I found the ticket-taker and asked if there was a problem with the movie and he said he'd find out for me. I went back in and sat down. 2 minutes later the manager came in and explained that they hadn't started the movie because they didn't realize they had sold a ticket. Before she went to start it, however, she demanded to see my ticket stub to prove I had paid! I should point out at this time that this was far from a busy evening; I live in a summertime tourist area and this was not the summer. As such, there was maybe a grand total of 50 people in the entire complex. Did not anybody think to ask the moron SELLING the tickets if someone bought a ticket for "The Mod Squad" BEFORE basically accusing said customer of some chicanery? At any rate, I showed her my stub, at which time she said "Thanks," when probably something along the lines of "I'm so sorry I accused you of being a criminal, here's 25 free passes, sir, please don't hold this against us" would have been more appropriate.
One more note before I get to the actual story I've been promising, and I need to preface it with a quick geography lesson. I live at the very southern tip of New Jersey, which is a peninsula. To make traveling a bit easier, there is a ferry which runs from Jersey over to Delaware. Without said ferry, cars coming from the west or south of the Jersey Shore would have to drive many, many hours out of the way to get into Jersey only to have to basically double back down to get to the shore. The ferry enables people to come straight across and saves tons of time. Thousands of people use this ferry every day, and the first thing they see after getting back in their cars and driving off the boat is, you guessed it....the movie theatre. So a little over a year ago, the brain trust that runs the place decided to take advantage of the fact that so many potential new customers were driving right past them every day. Thousands of people driving past every day, on their way to start vacation, most of them with kids in the car. So they did the most logical thing they could think of: THEY TOOK ALL THE NAMES OF THE MOVIES THAT WERE PLAYING OFF THE BIG GLOWING SIGN OUT FRONT. So now, people driving by are greeted by a message that says: "SHOW TIMES POSTED IN WINDOW." Except they don't even keep up on that and letters have fallen off never to be replaced, so it actually says "SHO T MES POS D IN WIN OW." They don't even bother to put their phone number up on the sign, which I guess is for the best since after a day or two there would only be 5 digits up there anyway. Oh, I almost forgot: the theatre is on the OTHER side of the highway from the ferry terminal, so anybody who wanted to go to the window to see what was playing would have to make a U-Turn, and then drive a half-mile back towards the ferry to make ANOTHER U-Turn to get back where they were going in the first place.
Now that I've set the stage as to what complete idiots these people are, tomorrow (I promise) you will finally get the story of what happened that fateful night at "The Matrix Reloaded."
