More Like “Galaxy Sucks”

Warning: I know this post is too long. Sorry, I didn’t see an obvious place to edit anymore of the story. This is the short version.

My mom treated me to a movie yesterday. The movie was ok.

You know what sucked? The movie theater. The Galaxy Six, to be exact.

As we walked in the front door, one employee was using a jig saw to do construction of some sign. Um, excuse me? Power tools in that path of children? Isn’t that what the off hours are for? Or even the other end of the parking lot? We make it past the idiot with the saw, and inside. The weird red lighting and musty smell was offsetting. The punk rock kid taking our tickets (how anti-establishment of him, especially in that little uniform) said nothing other than “screen one” directing us to the correct room. Mom and I were deciding on popcorn when we looked over at the concession counter. There was more construction going on behind the register. One of the kids behind the counter was leaning against the popcorn maker. She was scratching her head over what was clearly yesterday’s batch of popcorn. I wanted to turn around and go home, but I knew how badly mom wanted to see the movie.

So, we skip the over priced stale popcorn with the complementary coating of employee dander, and walk into the show room. There are multiple seats that are covered with black plastic garbage sacks. The rest of the seats have ripped and worn fabric. There is gum and filth everywhere. Plastic is peeling off of the seats in front of us. You can see where customers have thrown soda on the screen. It smells worse than the lobby, and is freezing.

Mom had to use the bathroom, and not only was there no paper of any kind in any of the stalls; there was nothing to dry your hands with. I wonder how the employees who are serving food are supposed to wash their hands?

The movie starts. I thought the director had done something clever: the movie was absolutely silent, as if to emphasize the quiet of the English country side. I was wrong. After a good 2 minutes, we realized the stoner upstairs never flipped the audio on (I feel that this may just be the explanation for the soda on the screen). The 12 of us in the audience wanted then to start the movie over. I was so pissed at this point, I had no problem being the one to convey that message to the usher.

I will not bore you with the idiocy of the conversation I had with him, but it boiled down to “they couldn’t restart the film”. I assured him he could, so the owner intervened. He also confirmed they have no rewind button (odd, due to the fact that they would be showing the same film later the same day). I demanded complete refunds of the money for all customers, and was guaranteed by the owner this would happen.

The film ends, and we leave the theater. That is when the assistant tried to pass out “re-admits” to us. I was not having it. I handed mine back to her and explained:

“No, no; you don’t seem to understand. We do not want re-admits. We had a miserable experience at your theater and have no intentions of returning. The owner promised us our money and that is what we want.”

She looked like she wanted to hit me, but the owner told her to refund us all.

The shame of it is that 10 years ago, it was a great theater. I will never set foot in that dump again.