A Tip for Those Who Light Up Cell Phones in Movie Theaters
BY JUSTIN CASE
People have rights. We’re born with them. We get to do what we want, as long as we do not intrude upon or hurt others, and that last part is the key. You are free to smoke, for example, but you are not free to blow it in my face.
Some of these rights have become matters of law, others are matters of common sense, courtesy, and decency. Trouble is, such courtesy and common sense are frequently lacking these days, and what we will discuss here are people who through their actions demon-strate that lack.
Cell phone users rank high on this list, and what comes to mind are thoughtless cell phone users in movie theaters.
Tickets for movies aren’t cheap these days. We pay good money to watch them in relative peace and without distractions. Yet, in every movie I have watched in a theater the last few years, some idiot feels he (or she) must check his cell phone during the course of the movie. They turn on the phone, emitting a bright light in a darkened theater. Can you believe this? And they are so clueless that they check their phone repeatedly, every 5 minutes or so, lighting up the theater each time while people are trying to watch the movie. You have to wonder what type of people do this, what goes through their little minds, as they shine a light in a darkened theater, surrounded by movie watchers, oblivious to anyone but themselves, and as they continually check for text messages and missed calls—or whatever it is dumb people do on smart phones. These are most likely the same people who allow their dogs to bark day and night, at anything that moves, or at nothing at all, as if their neighbors did not exist. These dogs are bored and lonely and should have cell phones themselves—their owners’ cell phones, so they could chit chat while their careless masters are at the movies.
Now, you and me, reasonable people who paid for our tickets and expect to watch a movie without rude distractions, sit there and put up with this. What we must realize though is that doing so makes us enablers, and so next time someone lights up a cell phone while a movie is playing, we recommend that someone else nearby grab that phone and drop it into the nearest big gulp soft drink, so that the cell phone is disabled (instead of enabled). Alternately, you might wack the boob across the back of the head with a rolled up newspaper. —Okay, just venting, you can’t actually destroy someone’s cell phone or smack them in a movie theater. So hold off on that (for now), and issue a verbal warning that goes something like this: Hey, you, with the cell phone—turn that damn thing off and keep it off. Be sure to write this down.
What’s more, don’t be nice about it, don’t say please, unless the perpetrator is a little old lady checking on her hospitalized grandchild, who come to think of it shouldn’t be at the movies in the first place—so, go ahead and yell at her too. Being nice in such situations may fail to adequately telegraph your annoyance and be counter productive, encouraging more bad behavior. So speak boldly. You’ll probably get a standing ovation. And while it may seem that we are recommending rude behavior here, on top of rude behavior, the satirical message embodied in this treatise is directed at the boob with the cell phone—keep it off, or someone nearby may grab it and submerge it in an icy soft drink.