Mamacita says:  I am so tired of shelling out money to watch a movie in a theater, only to have my (and everyone else’s, too) good time ruined by loud, wiggly, rude, mannerless, slurping  boors. Not just bratty kids, either. These tactless types come in all ages. Old women are some of the worst, in fact.  Talk, talk, talk, all through the film.

Anyone who disagrees with Val in this typically awesome Stone Soup cartoon is welcome to defend his/her really poor manners right here. Go on, explain to us why your loud, crackling packages of chips that you open AFTER the movie starts are justifiable.  Enlighten us about your desperate need to slurp down a four-course meal in a movie theater.  Tell us why you have a right to crunch that ice.  Be sure to arrive late so you have to sit in the middle, and then disturb everyone every fifteen minutes because you have to go to the bathroom.  Wear your biggest hat and don’t remove it.  Keep that iPod plugged into your ear and be sure the volume is up so high the people near you can’t tell the difference between it and the movie soundtrack.  Oh, and by all means keep your cell phone on; you might get an important call which you will no doubt answer with “Oh, nothing; what are YOU doing?”  Come on, try it. Tell us why you are entitled to behave in any way you choose in a public theater. We’re waiting.

If theaters brought back those uniformed ushers who threw out everybody who so much as wiggled too much during the movie, I’d pay extra to go to that theater.

So now, tell me why you think you have a right to talk, move around, eat like a slopping hog, check your email, block people’s view of the screen with your way cool chapeau, crunch your ice until people think they’re trapped in a cave during an avalanche, prop your feet on the back of the seat in front of you, and holler at the actors.  Come one, explain yourself.  If you’ve got something other than “Because I am a hog,” I want to hear it.

I didn’t think you could.

Everyone who agrees say ‘aye!’

The theater is not your living room.  When you enter the theater and the lights go out, your mouth should zip itself shut and not open again until the lights come back up.  You may leave room to insert a straw but the second you slurp, you lose that privilege, too.

The general public has no right to dictate your loud, slaphappy, wiggily, pizza-inhaling ways in your home, but the theater is not your home.  It’s a public place, and in a public place, nice people behave themselves.

Period.

What’s that?  You paid for your ticket?  Guess what; so did the rest of us.  Shut up and behave yourself.

Theaters, for the love of all that is holy, raise the ticket price a buck and hire ushers.  The meaner the better.  You might lost a few customers, but believe me, none of the rest of us will miss that kind, and if you guarantee that those people won’t be there, the rest of us will come back, again and again.  And we won’t leave the disgraceful horrendous mess all over the floor and seats that those people leave, either.  Think of the savings there.

Not to mention the positive word-of-mouth marketing that no amount of money could buy.

Please?

P.S.  If your bladder is small, get there in time to find a seat on the aisle.  The universe thanks you.