On a very recent Saturday afternoon, Macho Guy and I decided to see a movie. As it happens, I have a bone to pick with the movie theater experience. There once was a time when people went to the movies and actually saw just that—movies—and a cartoon or two, or even a double feature. Movie theaters hyped the fact that unlike television, when you went to the movies, you didn’t have to watch commercials.
Flash forward to present day. Before you’re allowed to see the feature film you paid to see, you have to sit through advertisement slides on the big screen for local businesses, interspersed with a movie and celebrity trivia quiz, and—wait for it—commercials. That’s right, commercials, just like the ones we see on TV. Is that bogus or what? Then you have to sit through the latest “celebrity news from Hollywood” delivered by perky young talking heads. ::yawn::
Just when you think your movie is about to start, here come the coming attractions. You sit through trailer after trailer after trailer until all your popcorn is gone and the movie still hasn’t begun. [Don’t get me started on how much movie theater concessions charge for popcorn.]
At last, following the theater’s cutesy animated disclaimer and safety instructions, the lights dim and your movie is finally about to begin. Yay! You look at your watch or other time keeping device [probably a smart phone] and discover it is already 20 minutes past the posted show time for the movie. The early show time posted for the movie is a fraud. It’s to get you into the theater early enough to see all the ads. And that’s when you discover that you suddenly need to use the restroom.
My question to movie theater owners is this. Why are prices for tickets and concession items going up when theater owners are making additional money by screening advertisements in their theaters? If they’re going to make us sit through all that Madison Avenue brainwashing, the least they could do is lower the ticket prices. Robber barons. I smuggle my own snacks and drinks into the theater just to spite them.
Macho Guy and I decided to go to evening church services that same Saturday following the movie. The lector welcomed everyone and requested that cell phones be turned off before the service began. Being ardent practitioners of cell phone etiquette, we dutifully turned ours off.
Someone lacking sufficient piety managed not to get the memo. During the sermon, a cell phone began to ring. Not a normal ring tone, mind you. This was one of those specialty ring tones the cool people download to set themselves apart from boring folks like Macho and me. This particular ring tone was loud. Very loud. Extremely loud.
The soulless pew warmer who owned it must have selected “ignore” because the accursed apparatus rang again a few moments later. Good grief. That disrespectful heathen ought to fear God’s wrath and be in mortal terror of being struck dead by a bolt of lightening. Turn the sacrilegious contraption off, you blasphemer, was what I wanted to say aloud. Instead, I prayed for Archangel Michael to come down from Heaven and slay the evil device. Barring that, I was willing to settle for its battery to die.
We returned home and after dinner, Macho Guy turned on the TV while I cleaned up the kitchen mess. He channel surfed and as usual found little to his liking. He cracked open a book and read, and I went to my MacBook Pro and began writing this post.
Writing is so cathartic. I can feel my peevishness melting away . . .
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I confess. I loved school as a kid, but I wasn’t one of those suck up, teacher’s pet, brown nose types. No way. I was just insatiably curious and still am. I love to learn new things.
Unfortunately, the knowledge I retain leans heavily toward the offbeat and trivial. For example:
The computers used to send Apollo astronauts to the moon were no more powerful than a cell phone. I wonder if we could send astronauts to Mars with a smart phone?
Contrary to legend that has Albert Einstein not speaking before he was four years old, a family history records him already speaking in full sentences at age two and a half. I think the first words he spoke as a child were e=mc2. Or maybe it just sounded like that. 
For the movie version of her novel Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell wanted to cast Groucho Marx as Rhett Butler. Yeppers. It’s true. Seriously. I couldn’t believe it either, or that the name she originally gave to Scarlett O’Hara was Pansy. What was she thinking?
Legend says Hershey’s Kisses got their name from the smooch sound or motion of the chocolate being deposited during manufacturing. Even machines love chocolate.
Mano a mano doesn’t mean man to man. The word hombre is Spanish for man. The word mano is Spanish for hand. Mano a mano is Spanish for hand in hand. More chummy than macho, that mental picture,
Bob Keeshan, TV’s Captain Kangaroo, was the original Clarabell the Clown on the iconic Howdy Doody Show. Well, you had to be a kid back then to appreciate that tidbit.
Birds eat half their weight in food every day. So, someone who eats like a bird is not someone you may want as a dinner guest.
Elvis Presley referred to his restroom as The Library. Read into that what you will.
Iconic sex symbol Marilyn Monroe’s weight fluctuated between 118 and 140 pounds. Hmmm. I think I need to find a way to go back in time—to when men appreciated a woman with some meat on her bones.
What’s your favorite bit of trivial knowledge?