lemon drops

(originally posted 3/18/2013)

The economy certainly fucks up going to see a movie. It’s not the cost of a ticket that’s the problem as much as it is the cost of snacks. What’s the point of going to see a flick if you can’t load up on candy, popcorn, and a beverage the size of a child’s wading pool? It’s part of the whole experience.

These days you have to stop at the Dollar Store on the way and buy discount candy and then try and sneak it in. The theater, fully aware of how outrageous their prices are now, is doing everything short of a pat-down to stop patrons from slipping in with their own candy. I think it’s easier these days to get on board a trans-Atlantic flight with a handgun than to try and slip into a movie with a box of Good & Plenty you purchased at the 7-11 on the drive over. What I want to know is how the theater can prevent people from carrying candy on their person. Was there some sort of snack food martial law called after popcorn hit $9 a bucket?

Then even after you’re able to push the box of discount Lemon Drops far enough into your colon to avoid detection, you’re not out of the woods. The ushers are marching up and down the aisles with their flashlights looking for contraband to start making its discreet way out of pockets and purses like so many sugary Punxsutawney Phils checking to see how many more days of winter are left before the coming attractions wrap up.

Want to know the worst part? Really? I don’t think you do. Everyone always says yes and then when the worst part is unveiled they suddenly wish they hadn’t seen it and go dashing off to vomit or seek forgiveness somewhere. In this case I doubt it’s going to be that bad but I wanted to give you a minute to decide before I leapt headlong into the worst part.

The worst part is the discount candy itself. As soon as you put one of these bargain basement confectioneries in your mouth they immediately grab hold of your loosest filling and decide to stay put. You can swirl saliva around it all you want but it’s not dissolving or loosening its grip on your tooth. Sure enough about 30 seconds into the feature presentation the Lemon Drop makes a break for it still clutching the filling and you’re spilling soda and screaming like a little girl… which is just what the ushers have been waiting for.

I think there was less excitement during a WW II prisoner escape behind German lines than what goes on in the next few seconds. If you think that the theater isn’t well aware of the adhesive properties of discount Lemon Drops, you’re fooling yourself. They know exactly what that wailing noise coming from aisle 14 is and they have the blazing hot spotlight trained on your seat in under five seconds. Before you know it there are a dozen rent-a-cops each holding back a frothing security dog barreling down the darkened aisles ready to haul you to theater prison.

Didn’t I tell you that was the worst part?

I’m a movie-lover from way back and I still have trouble forking over such a large amount of cash for a simple two-and-a-half hour escape from reality. To really get my money’s worth now I’ve come up with a way to make movies even more interesting: I assume that actors are playing the same characters I’ve seen them play in previous movies. Take Ethan Hawke for instance. I just saw him in the horror flick Sinister. I found it more enjoyable to pretend that he was the same character he played in Dead Poets Society. As soon as it started I was like “Oh, I wondered what he would end up doing for a living. A writer. How nice.” It also made me more invested as the movie progressed as I really identified with his DPS persona.

I won’t even go into most Denzel Washington films where only a few minutes into it I’m yelling “Holy shit, can this guy get a fucking break?! He just stopped a fucking runaway train and now this?” It’s usually right about then, as I’m getting worked up about Denzel’s new set of problems, that the little yellow candy hurls itself into the depths of my throat, sticks to the little thing hanging from the roof of my mouth and causes sirens to begin their task of alerting the theater security staff that they have another lemon dropper on their hands.

Don’t get me started on theater prison. Let’s just say you’ll get it both good and plenty and leave it at that.