I Just Don’t Like To Pay For It

I went to the movies with my daughter and her nephew (my grandson) today. I hemmed and hawed about going for a couple of reasons. I have a special relationship with my grandson and I didn’t really want to interfere with my daughter and Ewie’s time together, since she doesn’t get much quality time with him. I am also very, very cheap! I don’t mind spending money when you get good value for your dollar or if you have no underwear left at all. My problem is that I don’t think you get anywhere near enough value at the movies!

To begin with it is $12.95 for adults and $7.50 for children! If I was the only person that was going to the theatre then I could understand that price, but I am not the only one. There are excited, loud, crying, whiney, sticky, obnoxious kids and teenagers that you can barely see from the front because of the tubs of popcorn and the vats of pop that they are holding. You can make them out pretty clearly during the movie by the light of their smart phones. There are couples that are looking for a quiet dark place to “hold hands” and talk like they think adults do. There are adults that are there to get an hour or two of quiet and respite from whatever chores they are avoiding. There are even people there that come to see the movie! There were probably 60 people at this particular showing, so between tickets and munchies the theatre made roughly $1000. This particular movie (Cars II) was in two theatres with four shows each. That is $8000 per day for the one movie. There are 13 theatres in this complex so ballpark in a day they would generate about $52,000.

I know they don’t pay the staff bugger all because there is no motivation to provide anything like adequate service. They are busy popping their gum and squeezing pimples. They do the job as well as I expected them to do it. In other words, they are paid very poorly. There wasn’t even anyone there to take our tickets. That’s another thing that bugs me, if they are going to make you line up to buy the tickets, then why do you have to hand it over two steps away? Why not just have you buy the ticket and then walk into the show? It isn’t as if the kids working there really want to stand and take your ticket. Mind you it would be a better job than filling buckets of popcorn and kegs of soda pop for hours on end.

I was going to rant about the high cost of snacks at the theatre, but anyone that has ever bought anything to eat at the movies knows what I am talking about. What I want to know is why this is legal and clubbing someone on the head and emptying the cash out of his wallet isn’t? Now, as far as I am concerned having two kids going “PLEASE...PLEASE...PLEASE...PLEASE...” is the same as a club to the head.

Having said all of this, I enjoyed the movie and I truly love the theatre experience. The smells and the sights and sounds just enhance the movie for me so much more than watching it at home. I suppose that I just don’t like to pay for it. For me, that applies to most things. Life is a struggle.