Monday, June 02, 2008

Old people at the cinema

Sometimes I am very impressed with my own self control. Impressed because I usually repress my frequent urges to fuck people up in a way they desperately deserve. Most recently this happened when I attended the cinema on Saturday night to see "The Painted Veil" (plot summary: cuckolded husband gets revenge on his adulterous wife by forcing her to accompany him into the middle of a cholera outbreak in rural China. Great date movie.)
This particular cinema leans more towards art house fare rather than mainstream blockbusters. It's also in a pretty affluent suburb. As such, its clientele is disproportionately dominated by rich old people. Two things about these people bug me. One is that they frequently have loud conversations that make it clear they really don't like poor people (like me, for instance). Two is that they move REALLY FUCKING SLOWLY!
There is a flight of stairs at the entry and I had the bad luck to be directly behind a group of six old people. They walked in a clump taking up the whole stairway so I was forced to walk at about 1/10th of my preferred speed behind them. All the while considering screaming out "Why the fuck won't you people move to the fucking side and walk in single fucking file? You're always complaining how young people are rude. Do you know why they're rude? They're following your fucking example!"
As annoying as they were, I figured I could survive being stuck behind them on the stairs. They were indeed slow, old and pompously rich but it would only be a minute or two until I could get past them. Finally they reached at the top of the stairs. And they fucking stopped! There was a wide open foyer right in front of them. Did they walk into this open space and then pause to consider their options? No they did not! They stopped at the head of the stairs completely blocking the way with a wall of old people-ness.
I almost called them an immovable wall but I could have moved them real fucking easy. I was seriously considering grabbing them by their pearl necklaces and fox skin shoulder wraps and hurling them back down behind me. My near-psychic girlfriend (who knows me very well) kept a firm grip on me and so the spillage of pensioner blood was averted.
But I'm glad I didn't dress up for the night. These people are so uptight, the sight of me in a collarless shirt was probably almost as confronting to them as if I had actually screamed at them to get the fuck out of my way. These little revenges make life worthwhile sometimes.

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