One of my most embarrassing moments occurred last month when I sojourned to St. Marys to visit a friend of mine from college. Before dinner and a movie, I had decided to stop at the Wal-mart Supercenter. After reading the novel Frankenstein, my students created comic strips depicting one of the themes from the novel, and I wanted to reward three of my students who did an outstanding job on this assignment. Upon entering the Supercenter, I quickly made my way to the Valentine’s Day candy section and gazed upon the pink and red tantalizing high fructose corn syrup candy in endearing packaging. I bought three large heart-shaped marshmallow lollipops for my kids and decided to get two for myself as well.
I met up with my friend, ate a fantastic quesadilla at Merlins, and then went to the downtown theater in St. Marys to watch The Lovely Bones. We purchased our tickets and found two seats in the theater, despite the packed crowd. As the movie began, I took two heart-shaped marshmallow lollipops out of my pocket, one for me, and one for my friend. I struggled opening the plastic wrapper, but anxiously awaited the taste of my post-dinner treat.
Everyone’s eyes were on the big screen, but not for long. All of the sudden, I became instantly blinded by a bright flashlight held by a young women who pointed it right at my face. She wanted to see what I was eating and knew I didn’t buy my heart-shaped marshmallow lollipop from the movie theater concession stand. I was sitting in the center of the theater in the middle of my row, so to get my attention the attendant yelled, “Sir, you did not buy that in our concession stand.” Her bright light in the dark theater had already attracted quite a bit of attention, but her boisterous voice attracted even more. For the first time in my life, I wished I was a hermit crab. She yelled again, “You need to pass that lollipop over here immediately.” To my embarrassment, I handed it to the woman sitting next to me and everyone in my row joined in on passing it over to the attendant. The attendant shined her light all over me and saw the other lollipop on my friend’s lap. She shouted again, “I see another lollipop. You need to pass that over here right now.” I felt like a fool; my friend laughed.
The young female attendant, who my friend and I refer to as the “Theater Nazi” resumed a perturbed stance in the aisle by a group of teenagers. She watched their every move throughout the rest of the movie. I hate when people text during a movie, but the Theater Nazi wasn’t about to allow that to happen. I found out later, this attendant has even been known to take cell phones according to my students. Perhaps I can hire her to monitor my classroom. She scowled constantly, looked around the theater frequently, and was rather distracting. The movie was suspenseful, but I was more frightened by the Theater Nazi when she paced the aisles. I was the only cheap snacker to be caught, but several other teenagers were verbally reprimanded for either texting or talking. It was entertaining and somewhat relieving to see other people get in trouble.
After the movie, the Theater Nazi pulled a group of teenagers aside and roared, “Who spit the blue gum on the floor?” I was glad not to be in those teens’ shoes; she was extremely angry. The Theater Nazi probably didn’t want advice from the cheap snacker on how to solve this case, but I wanted to offer her advice. I would have told her, “Don’t antagonize teenagers and pick your battles. You are going to make spitting gum on the floor for this group of teenagers more exhilarating next time, especially because teenagers like defying rules.”
I learned my lesson from this experience. Don’t take your own food into the movie theater. It’s wrong, and if you get caught it can be extremely embarrassing. I’ll settle for overpriced chocolate covered raisins or sodium-suicide popcorn next time. Movie theater concession stand prices are outrageous, but somebody has to pay for actors’ multi-million dollar paychecks and the D size batteries for the Theater Nazi’s flashlight.
Ryan Devlin is a 24-year-old English teacher and cross country coach at Brockway Area High School. If you have ever taken your own treat into the movie theater or want to contact Ryan become a fan of “Keep the Penny” on facebook. Total reader savings thus far for your piggy bank, three cents.