Reasons I Don't Go to the Local Cinema

I live in a small town. I live 15 minutes OUTSIDE of a small town. A small town with ONE cinema, with 2 mediocre screens, exorbitant ticket prices, twitchy, underpaid staff and a really really sad turnout half the time. So. I go with my family to see a movie this past Christmas break, before my sister heads back East to go to school. We head out to see Meet the Fockers, which is a good enough movie in itself. But all the amazing/awful/creepy/memorable stuff happened before the movie even started. My parents insist on leaving 45 minutes before the show starts to make sure we get good seats. Thus we arrive half an hour before the movie even starts, and if they cleaned these theatres between shows (which they don't) then we might have surprised the groomers from the previous showing. It was the day after New Year's. I am the only one in my family not nursing some kind of hangover. So, we're all alone in the theatre, my brother, sister, mother and father-- but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me list my reasons for why I hate the local cinema, yet also why I keep returning.
Reason No. One: There's something you need to know about my Dad. He kind of gets a bang out of verbally belittling members of the entertainment services industry. Usually it's only a slightly
incompetent waitress who happens to have some bad karma coming her way who ends up bearing the brunt of my father's incomprehensible and undeniably slightly senile rage. But this time, it was the equally sharp-tongued-yet-patient ticket seller at the counter. My Dad was pissed because they couldn't take debit. The woman pointed out that 3 banks (all three banks in town, mind you,) were within easy walking distance if he wanted to withdraw the cash. Now since we have half an hour lying spare due to being unfashionably and neurotically early, the rest of my family is nodding fervently and nudging my dad to take a trip outside for ten minutes and go get some cash. Somehow, my dad found enough cash on him to buy all our tickets, but that wasn't enough. For some reason he hated using cash rather than debit. For some reason, after he had bought the tickets, and after their transaction was apparently at an end, he continued to berate the crap system while taking a reeeally long time to put his change back in his wallet. He actually physically lingered by the counter to prolong the confrontation. By now he's repeated his stance on the issue about 15 times, so he can't be trying to get his point across. No doubt it's firmly planted in the woman's mind and my entire family is now on their Wall of Shame or something. So my mom, sister, brother and myself are standing in the lobby, pretending we don't know our Dad, which is pretty harsh and impossible, given that we can't go into the theatre yet because Dad still has all our tickets in his fist and the lobby itself is probably roughly 10 x 10 feet (10 x 9 really, it's more oblong) and we're the ONLY OTHER PEOPLE THERE.
Reason No. Two: When other people eventually start filtering into the theatre, one of the first things I see is two couples. Both girls looked to be 15/16, and 18/19, and their male partners looked to be about 20-ish and 30, respectively. There was just something eerie about the whole setup. They weren't any girls I knew, and considering it's a fairly small town with one high school it was weird. Maybe they came through town in their trailer. Maybe they left the kids with the girl's mother who lives with them in the trailer so they could go out for a night of society and culture in the latest Ben Stiller flick. Maybe they're cousins. First cousins.
Reason No. Three: The woman who owns the cinema makes a speech at the beginning of every movie. I don't want to offend, but this woman could lay off the butter on her popcorn for the next few decades. She was wearing a violently green, thin silk blouse. And no bra. Heaving bosom. NIPPLES APPARENT!
Reason No. Four: The aforementioned 40/50-something Chunks Ahoy Harlot made us *clap* in appreciation of EACH and EVERY PREVIEW! I'll clap after I've SEEN the movie IN FULL and had a chance to make my own deductions of how good it is. 75% of the good parts in a movie are shown in the trailer, and yet the previews they showed sucked as a whole. Except for the POTO trailer (which they did NOT show but I have seen elsewhere.) That was like a crack-rock of pure joy. And the movie was like a 3-hour long orgasm. God, I get tingly thinking about it.
Reason No. Five: In response to my e-mail asking when they would be showing POTO, they gave me the world's vaguest response EVER. 'We don't know when...but sometime in the future we hope to...' Well, that's just fan-fuckin'-tastic. I might as well phone Miss Cleo and ask HER. At least I'd get to hear her accent and snicker. There's nothing funny about the woman at the cinema.
Reason No. Six: When I realized I was sitting in a dim theatre at the end of a row, neurotically scribbling into a notebook while glancing around me as if I feared arrest. I was simply observing. But I have not the gift of subtlty. My mother noticed and commented on it. God, I'm creepy. I'd hate to sit next to me at a bus stop. If I ever become a drug-addicted hobo I'll be absolutely insufferable.
Reason No. Seven: The following conversation before the movie started:
My Mother: *glancing at me rummaging through my purse* You brought a BOOK?
Me: *a little more lippy than I should have been* Correction. I brought TWO books.
My Sister: *laughs*
Me: I hate this family. *sulks*
My Brother: *something snide but forgettable.*
My Father: *sits at the other end, oblivious. Most likely still fixated on the ticket woman and wondering if he won or lost that battle.*

Reasons Why I continue to GO to the Cinema in spite of the above reasons.
Reason No. One: I am way too lazy to make the 1/2 hour journey into the main city ever time i want to see a movie on short notice.
Reason No. Two: However bad ticket prices may be here, they are 4 dollars more in the city.
Reason No. Three: Parking is hell in the city.
Reason No. Four: Amusing car games can be played on the way into the cinema. Namely: Hit The Senior Pedestrian Who Shouldn't Be Out On The Streets After Dark. We have a curfew for a reason people! So that the teens can come out after dark and frolic undisturbed!
Reason No. Five: half of my friends ARE the surly, underpaid employees.
Reason No. Six: for more money than is necessary, you can buy movie posters which help cover up a bad paint job on the walls in my room.
Reason No. Seven: they have a nicely laid out and not-too-confusing snack counter, where they don't try and foist the combos on you. I can buy my Fuzzy Peaches in peace and leave unscathed.
Seven for Seven.
So I'm no closer to closing my inner debate every time I go to see a movie.
But...
Random gripes:
The seniors in my town. They call the cops on you if you jump off the end of the pier to go swimming. They're constantly watching you from the windows of their stuffy condos, have hte cops on speed dial, and their fingers poised over the button. My Dad redeemed himself from the unfortunate ticket-episode by suggesting this: in his youth, when they wanted to piss off the waterfront senior residents, they'd build a driftwood raft, soak it in accelerant, set it alight, and shove it off into the middle of the water. This prompts the nosy seniors to report someone's boat is on fire and be made jackasses of.
I drove by someone's Christmas display the other day, and they had wooden home-made painted toy soldier lining their driveway, each about 4-5 feet high. This is fine. Except one of the soldiers was black. Charcoal black. Now before I get hatemail over this, I have no problems with black people. I love 'em. I'd only hate them if they were Swiss. No, my issue was this: it was an unnatural shade of black for skin. Also, there was only one of them. Why paint ONE black, among 11 other white ones? It shows you are trying to be racially fair, or you ran out of white paint or something. Either way you looks obnoxious. Race shouldn't matter to the point where we have to specifically single out any one race simply to say "look, we included them!" If you're going to have black soldiers as lawn decorations, make more than one. Have one side of the driveway black and the other side white. Or intersperse them so it doesn't look like they're having the Civil War. All it would take would be the white home owner standing in his driveway to upset the racial balance and convince people that the South had risen again.

Happy Thought: Do, Date or Dump (a variation of DINAO, albeit with more options and thus less torturous fun for the participants.) Pick a person, then decide among the three. Less mentally stimulating, but perhaps worth a try. I've only ever heard of this and never actually tried it.

The Local Cinema; Senior Citizens; and poorly-thought-out lawn decorations: in some people's opinions, they are Good Things-----> GUNNED DOWN!