The one thing that came close to marring my experience of Donnie Darko last night (but, luckily, not close enough) was the near free-for-all of conversations going on around me, both between people and on cell phones.
Now, ordinarily I am adamantly opposed to talking at all during a movie; you can understand, therefore, why I believe that allowing a cell phone to ring, answering it, and either proceeding to have a conversation or climbing over everybody to have the conversation outside the theater is a compounded crime so heinous as to warrant instant decapitation.
Which leaves me mystified as to why the gentleman sitting several rows in front of me was permitted to live. His cell phone rang four times during the movie, and he answered it and left the theater each time, coming back after he was done, much to the irritation of his rowmates. After the movie, I ran into a friend of mine, who, it turned out, had been unfortunate enough to sit next to Inconsiderate Cell Phone Man. I asked him what in God’s name had been going on.
My friend replied, “He said his wife was having a baby.”
I stared, agog.
My friend said, “I asked him why the fuck he was at the movies instead of at the hospital with his wife. He did not have a satisfactory answer.”
Can you figure out why I didn’t pull out a machete, pursue this man, and chop his head off?
Because I sure can’t.
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