Considering that it took us until yesterday to see Indiana Jones 4, I’m the last person who should be commenting on movie-going experiences.  I’m falling back on the excuse that I just wasn’t all that interested in the latest installment of the Indy series and decided to wait until it hit the cheap seats before doling out any $$ to see it. So much for our hard earned movie junkie titles of the past.  We haven’t been traveling to the theatres very often of late (exemption: Hellboy II).  Waiting for the movie to be released on DVD seems to be the modus operandi du jour.

Yesterday we decided to take a break from the garage build and drive out to the local discount theatre to see Indy.  Well, it was more like I gave in.  I wanted to see Prince Caspian or Iron Man.  Drew was adamant about seeing Indy.  We so rarely disagree on which movies we’re going to see and he’s been hard at work on the garage forever. I agreed to see his preferred movie.  I was dreading the experience. I had such fond memories of seeing Indy movies with my dad when I was a kid.  I loved the movies, the music, the storylines and the silliness.  I didn’t want my memories tarnished by a movie made many years later.  Some things are sacred.  Like childhood. You can never really go back again.

If you do, you shouldn’t do it at the early afternoon matinee showing of a movie on a long weekend!

Yeah.  I’m a idiot.  Not only did I agree to go see Indy 4 (sadly disappointing) but I also agreed to see it as a matinee instead of a midnight showing.  Glutton for punishment.  That’s me.

This is a good time to mention that despite popular belief amongst our friends, Drew and I do not hate children.  We just don’t want any of our own.  We do, however, adore our godson and various children of friends.  We love to spoil them rotten and then hand them back to their parents.  All that good stuff.  I don’t want to get into a childfree vs. parenting rant so let’s just leave it at that for the time being.

Children are, while discomforting, fine in our books.  Our problem is with some (not all) parents.  Breeders actually.  There’s a big difference between breeders and parents.  Parents teach their children social norms.  They give their children everything they need, but not necessarily everything they want.  They teach them that it’s OK to fail; it’s making the attempt that’s important.  Parents hand down morals and values.  Through their parents children learn that they are a small segment of a larger world around them.  In my experience Breeders are self-involved.  They could care less about the world around them – they’re far more interested in being lauded for the wondrous performance of plopping out kids.  They shove others out of their way with their giant strollers and teach their children that nothing matters other than fulfilling their immediate desires.  Their kids learn that they’re “special” and more important than others.  Their mantra appears to be “look at my kid, he matches my couch.”

Behind us in the movie theatre was a set of Breeders and their 4 kids.  From the moment we sat down until the end of the movie, the kids loudly babbled away through the movie.  At points their voices were so loud that others in the theatre couldn’t hear the dialog.  While everyone around them (us, the couple sitting next to us, the family sitting behind them, and the couple sitting beside them) tried the tried and true method of shushing the kids, they continued to babble non-stop.  Why didn’t they quiet down during the movie?  Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that dear old dad was happily talking – at a normal voice level and with no attempts to whisper – to the kids throughout the movie.  One of the children spent the movie kicking the back of Drew’s seat.  No attempts to ask the child to stop were successful.  More annoying than a small child kicking your seat was the father kicking the back of mine throughout the movie.  Can’t expect a kid to behave when they’re watching daddy dearest do the exact same thing throughout the movie.  Twice the alarm on his watch beeped and flashed for two minutes.  Loudly.  He made no attempt to turn off the alarm.  His expensive fancy schmantzy watch was doing exactly what it was designed to do.  Call attention to it’s owner.

What was mom doing during all of this?  Smiling indulgently at the children.  No reprimands.  No explanation as to why everyone around them was *shushing* them repeatedly.  The kids asked why.  Repeatedly.  In their outside voices. We couldn’t help but hear them.  Must have been a completely new experience.  Rather than explain social norms and tell the kids to be quiet (other than the standard “ooohs” and “awwws”) and wait until the end of the movie to ask their questions, they studiously ignored the question.  It’s the only question the children asked that daddy didn’t respond to during the entire movie.

If I’d been at the normal theatre and paid 13$ for my ticket I’d have immediately launched out of my seat and demanded a refund from the management.  Having only paid a dollar to attend and not really caring about the movie, I just couldn’t be bothered.  Management at this particular theatre wouldn’t have made the attempt to placate angry customers.  I’ll never go back to a matinee.

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