The True Terror of Friday the 13th

Friday night was full of fun as well as terror. There was also some rage and that's mostly what I'm planning to talk about today.

I don't really get angry very often. I get annoyed, I get upset, I get frustrated, but not really angry. Angry is special and impressive. All the other emotions tend to fade away as soon as the cause for that emotion is gone, and then I fade back slowly to relaxed. Angry leaves me too short tempered to relax so immediately and tends to get compounded too easily. I have to concentrate a bit to start the process back to relaxed. Angry has led to violence in the past; not much mind you, I can count on one hand the times that's occurred, but there's been some punches and scuffles from being pushed a step too far.

Friday night we were heading for the movies. We had pre-bought our tickets, so there were no concerns about being able to get into the movie or finding seats. We did start to worry about getting into the theatre though. You see, Friday night it started snowing. It was a bit on the slippery side and caution was called for but there's caution and then there's fear and then there's stupidity. Add the snow and the listed reactions to it with a busy Friday night at the theatre with the fact that the theatre in question has only one access point to the parking lot and you get traffic that doesn't move for five minutes because people are clogging the interchanges in the lot and can't get free because the traffic light didn't change and no one thought to just make a right turn instead and break the jam. This annoyed and frustrated me. I was not driving but my friend that was driving was also annoyed and frustrated so we didn't help each other relax very well. We fed each others anger.

Finally we got into the lot and parked, fussing and fuming as we walked. One of our party was meeting us there and was stuck in the traffic. His normal five minute trip took him a half-hour. As part of our tickets, we had a five dollar vouchure for the snack bar and I was encouraged to go instead and make use of it. As I entered, I bumped into a different friend of mine and chit-chatted with him for a minute. This chance meeting relaxed me a little and then I headed to the snack bar.

Mistake!

I picked what felt like the shortest line and decided what I wanted. The line didn't move for ages and my annoyance started to build back to anger. When the people in front of me didn't step up to the front when the opportunity presented (I'm not saying that they didn't rush the counter as soon as the gap presented itself, I'm saying that they were having too much fun for a moment to step forward and I wasn't in the mood to see that) and then didn't have an order ready to place, I got more mad. I had no way to take it out without being the bad guy so I just stood there and fumed. Once they finally got their stuff and moved on, I got to the front, made my simple request, and it was quickly granted. Thank you! A step in the right direction.

A few things then went right. I bumped into my buddy again, which wasn't that much of a shock as we were going to the same movie, and then I saw that my other friend had made it through the traffic so that was settled. We got in the theatre, got in our seats, and I tried to relax a bit as I starting eating my candy and watching trailers for films that didn't make me want to see the films in question very much.

Then the film started. The lights were still on in the theatre. This caused a couple comments from the audience but nothing changed. I was not relaxed enough to take another bump in the road and quickly grew irritated again. The desire to throw my Junior Mints at the screen was strong but I resisted. As the credits continued and nothing changed, my buddy got up to talk to someone about this. When he returned he noted that the individual he spoke with was 'going to talk to someone about it'. What? It's the lights in the theatre! It's probably just a dimmer switch. Does the manager have to make a decision about who's responsible enough to touch the dimmer switch? I got a little explosive but tried to settle down for the benefit of the rest of the audience. It's not like they were happy about this either. Let's just try to ignore it and watch the movie. About five minutes later, as my buddy rose to complain again, the lights finally came down.

Okay. Deep breaths. Just get into the movie and relax a little. Everything will be fine by the end of the film. Just relax.

Then a couple rows behind me, someone's phone goes off. Seriously? And they pick up and start talking without leaving the theatre. Seriously?!?

At that point, I was done. The theatre going experience was well and truly dead to me. Almost everything I'd ever predicted about the death of theatres was happening to me. All I needed was damage to the print of a new film or a problem with the sound system and my night would be complete.

Thankfully no. That was it. I could finally relax and get into the movie. I laughed a little, reacted to the scary scenes, and, despite my distaste for doing so, applauded from amused joy at one point. I know, it's not a play and they can't hear me, but it wasn't at the end of the film as if to say 'that was a good movie', it was a spontaeous 'oh wow!' sort of thing that others joined in on.

By the end I was okay again. I'm still not keen to go back to the theatre though. It may cause me to skip a film or two that I'm not sure on. Or maybe that's just fall-out from one of the trailers I saw. It just didn't feel right. We'll see.