Cinema Customer Scoop #3: If Only Phonics Came In Pill Form...

Evidently, the company which owns the theater where I am employed seems to believe that it's employees should both follow the USPS's code, and have the patience of Prometheus. Upon my arrival to work at three PM (Central Time), on Thursday the seventeenth day of March, in the year of our lord two-thousand and eleven I entered into the box office to find my coworker David. I was glad to find that I would not be suffering the wrath of brainless customers alone. Seeing as I would be there until after midnight, I needed all the help I could get. Though David only worked until five, I was later joined by Mattie later in the day, and we both learned to become greatly annoyed a incredibly irking mechincal problem.

To my dismay I discovered a horrible plague which had affected the electronic money machines throughout the course of the day. Apparently the building's internet service went down at some point during the night, an no one noticed or cared and it had gone on unresolved. Because of this, whenever you would enter in a credit card transaction, it would take eighteen seconds of your life away, and not give them back. This led to many a supreme awkward silence as you wait for the computer takes it's merry time printing out the ticket. As it took eighteen miserable seconds for this to transpire, a large portion of my life has been spent not talking to people while holding their debit cards.


But eventually the day came to an end, and I went home for a handful of hours, only to return to the theater at ten-thirty the next morning. To my great disappointment(and expectation) the internet had not been repaired, and card transactions still ate away a third of a minute of time away from me. According to one of the managers who called the company's corporate office telling them about the fact that the machines were acting so slowly, and likely was causing the company to lose money by simply accepting cards despite the fact that the information could not be sent out to the card companies the card made a purchase. The head office said they might get around to it on Tuesday. Showing that the company doesn't even care about earning money at this point, we decided to simply continue on possibly losing money.

Eventually the internet became operational again (thanks to some elves I guess) and I was able to send customers away quickly, instead of being forced to stare at their meaty faces longer than needed. Once again I was given Mattie as a cell-mate, but we also received several visitors, who would eventually crowd the box like a phone booth filled with 1920's college students. Around four thirty Bow came in to take away the cash monies from my drawer so I wouldn't have to work for the last half hour. But as she was pulling the cash from the drawer a rather portly and ape like man waddled up to the window. Sensing that something stupid was coming she rapidly said "Someone get them" many a time, but it was to no effect. It was bad enough when customers come up to the employee who is obviously busy with something that is not helping a customer, and demand satisfaction, but this was historically different.

The man came up to the window, looked down at Bow, read her nametag and decided for some unknown reason to shout out "Me Bow!" like a Neanderthal. This led to four grown men to shuffle out of site and laugh themselves stupid. After hearing the customer Bow's jaw tightened to an extent that it could make diamonds out of coal. A happy moment I will treasure forever.


After the not-Gieco cave man left, I still had about twenty-five minutes before my shift ended, and there was no money in my register. Unfortunately a line started to build up in front of Mattie, so I had to go back and work on my impoverished computer. Despite me constantly informing the line that I had no cash in the drawer, and was only able to process credit or debit cards they still came up clutching those pieces of green paper.

Eventually Bow decided to write a sign telling customers that I was only able to accept those wallet dwelling plastic planes. But this would require customers to actually read something, which as we know is one of their least developed skills. Hell most of them don't even know to put the money into the opening at the bottom of the window, a surprisingly large number of them press the money up to the glass, only to find that there is some kind of shield between me and them.

After the addition of the sign, I still had to constantly point and inform people that my line would not accept cash. Eventually another apish man came up to me and tried to give me cash money, to which I told him I would only accept cards. Apparently this was believed to be a verbal attack on him so he quipped at me with a mighty "Well, where does it say that?!" to which I pointed to the piece of paper which appeared to float above my left shoulder. So he countered with a crushing "Well you should get a bigger sign!" Granted the sign was not the largest size possible, customers still would not have read it anyways. Apparently reading is a chore to them. So, to assist them I place the note directly in front of my face, but apparently this was still not subtle enough for them. If people actually cared about reading, Hooked on Phonics would make a fortune off of nearly illiterate baby boomers.

Saint Crapintines Chocolate Clambake

If it's not already largely apparent, I am far from being commodore Suave, and I don't try to be. Because of this condition I call "dorkalitous" I am in an eternal state of loathing that day in February which is supposed to be about Saint Valentine. I don't think if Saint Valentine went around giving people chocolate instead of marrying early Christian couples, he would have been remembered as much. Though perhaps if he did, he wouldn't have been sentenced to death by Claudius II, unless he gave him those chalky hearts with stupid sayings on them. What is "very fine" all about anyways?



As a young American child, you would be forced to participate in the ritual of being forced to give treats to the rest of you classmates, wither or not you liked them. These were the years in which I actually enjoyed Valentine's day, as I knew I would without a doubt receive candy to make myself sick with. Yet, this feeling of excitement was not meant to last, and disappeared during the sixth grade. Up through the fifth grade, you would be placed in one classroom for the entire day, much like cattle placed in dairy barns to feed and be milked. As we were being milked, we were placed into a lull, which the school overlords felt could be covered up by red, pink, and white paper, and the exchanging of confectionary.

Though we were given the freedom to set up a NAFTA of children exchanging candies, the products were usually far from delectable. Many of the children (or more likely their parents) were cheapskates, and only purchased sub-par chalk based candies with rather uninspired sayings written upon them. Or very bland heart-shaped lollipops with a suspicious white detailing which often poorly applied.

Yet, starting in sixth grade, we were no longer confined to one teacher, and one group of children the entire length of the school day. So it became a rarity that I received anything for Valentine's day, and by rare I mean rare. It was about as rare as finding a dramatic movie that resonates within you when it has David Spade in the lead role. Upon one hand I can count the number of Valentines I have received in the past ten years, they number two. One was from a friend of mine in middle school, it was a Hello Kitty brand card without Hello Kitty upon it. The other came from February 14th 2011. As I woke and walked to class I noticed a piece of paper tucked underneath my windshield wiper:



If you may be confused by what this means you likely don't watch the British car show Top Gear. Which has a "tame" racing driver who sets the lap records for all the cars reviewed on the show, and apparently knows two facts about ducks (both of which are wrong.) As I Christmas gift I received this sticker:



Though it's far from a romantic gesture, it's much better than being ignored by someone who may peak your interest. So it becomes much more important than those imaginary Valentines you may receive, like a honey baked ham or a hardy handshake. Plus the heart with hyphen on either side is a nice touch.

Becoming rather bitter over time (we are talking plain radish and black coffee bitter,) after years of unaffection, I have found a sort of light at the end of the tunnel. The day after Singles Awareness Day is blessed with the mark down of candies, which "bachelors" like myself can horde and feast upon in an attempt to fill the void in our souls with chocolate, peanut butter, and cherry flavored hard candy. It seldom works. Though there is a feeling of exuberance going down the aisles grabbing those sweets which chumps paid top dollar for only twelve hours previous.

Cinema Customer Scoop #1: Card-Swiping Lunacy

In my four and a half years of working at movie theaters it is inevitable that I will have my fair share of stupid customers and the inane gibberish that spouts from their noise holes. Each of them has their own personal stories, each with it’s own aggravating idiom. Now, you will be able to enjoy those wonderful stories of ignorance and all around nearly unbelievable acts of ineptitude.

This story comes from the month of June, in the year of two-thousand and ten. Obama was president, and the world was not yet overrun by pink zebras with deplorable table manners. I was working on concessions all day, the sun had gone down, so the glare from the cars in the parking lot was no longer frying my retinas. The box office worker had needed a break, and I being the only other person qualified to work it, left concessions and sauntered over to box.

I gave a rappa-tap on the door, and found it opened by Thomas, who was working within. He left and I sat down to a half hour of taking green paper, and exchanging it for glossy red papers. The first twenty-eight minuets went on without a hitch, few customers came, as I was assume everyone was out hog-calling, and hadn’t the thought to go and see a movie. I was almost done covering for Thomas, and a squat-bent up little man with a wife in a purple blouse came up to the window.

He ordered two tickets for Grown Ups, as if that wasn’t a big enough mistake, he proceeded to hand me his credit card, which became an extreme source of anger for me. I swiped the card through the machine, and the message popped up on my screen reading “This is not a Credit Card,” despite the fact that I looked very much like one, and it even said the words on it’s colorful surface. I shook off this first attempt at preventing the card from working, and went about swiping it again, as sometimes the register sometimes will refuse to scan on the first swipe. The message appeared several more times, so I shouted “Vile machine! Thou shoust not make me a fool!” and began entering the card’s information manually.

After entering the card number and expiration date, then asking the customer for his billing zip code, I turned the card around to find it’s three digit security code. What’s this!? The code was absent from its spot, not only had the ink from the letters disappeared, but the entire of the backside of the card had been sanded smooth. Unable to read the back of the card, I asked the squat man if he knew the code, quite obviously he didn’t. But, he did go on to tell me to keep trying and swipe the card fruitlessly. After five minutes of “this is not a credit card” I told him it did not work. He then produced a second card, which worked instantly.

Why hadn’t he given me the working card from the get go? Instead he let me go about frivolously trying to make the shell-shocked card work, despite it obviously being long dead. After leaving box, I saw him talking to Sean my manager about something. I scurried away into the hallway so that he wouldn’t see me, and attack me with his defunct card. Sean later told me that the small man said I had abused the card and given him a dirty look when I threw his tickets at him. Despite the fact that I give a neutral reaction to his card not working, he made me out to be a rather angry-elf who stabbed his card in the heart with a letter opener.