![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrI have been thinking about an incident which happened on New Year's Day. I can't believe that I have thought about it as much as I have!
The four of us went to see a movie. Rob and the girls stopped at the concession stand, so I went into the theater alone to find seats for us. The girls always like to sit in the back row, so I looked there, first. The first five rows were pretty open, but otherwise the theater was rather full, with only single seats scattered here and there. But in the back row, there were two women seated together in the exact center. On each side of them, there were three open seats.
So I went up to that row and asked one of them whether they would mind moving down by just one seat so that our party of four could sit there. The woman glanced at me and then looked away. "No," she said. "We won't. We were here first."
My jaw dropped at her rudeness. I just couldn't believe it. I felt a sudden boil of anger and I knew I had to get away fast before I said something I really regretted. "Thank you so much," I muttered with exaggerated politeness--absurdly--and I hurried away to the third row of the theater and got seats for us there.
Why am I still thinking about it four days later?
The four of us went to see a movie. Rob and the girls stopped at the concession stand, so I went into the theater alone to find seats for us. The girls always like to sit in the back row, so I looked there, first. The first five rows were pretty open, but otherwise the theater was rather full, with only single seats scattered here and there. But in the back row, there were two women seated together in the exact center. On each side of them, there were three open seats.
So I went up to that row and asked one of them whether they would mind moving down by just one seat so that our party of four could sit there. The woman glanced at me and then looked away. "No," she said. "We won't. We were here first."
My jaw dropped at her rudeness. I just couldn't believe it. I felt a sudden boil of anger and I knew I had to get away fast before I said something I really regretted. "Thank you so much," I muttered with exaggerated politeness--absurdly--and I hurried away to the third row of the theater and got seats for us there.
Why am I still thinking about it four days later?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 09:39 pm (UTC)I'm 5'2", which means that if I'm sitting behind anything but an empty seat or a kid at the movies I have to crane my neck for two hours to see over somebody's shoulder -- not a huge deal, but a rather annoying contribution to an annual movie date. I've been in the situation of the two women you describe -- we'd gotten to the theater early, picked a spot in a row from which I could see and where I was sitting behind a child, and then had a family of three come up and ask we we could move over so they could sit together. The theater was quite full by then, and it was clear that there were no three seats together anywhere. So I moved -- and ended up watching Goblet of Fire through the keyhole between the shoulder and the baseball cap of the kid's rather tall father and the silhouette of whoever was sitting next to him.
In that case, I moved because the desire of a family to watch the movie together trumps, for me, the discomfort of craning my neck to see. But if there were other open seats, three together, in the theater, just in a different row? I probably would have said, sincerely, "Oh, I'm sorry -- I wish I could help, but I don't think I'd be able to see the screen if I moved. I think there are three seats together up at the front -- maybe you could try those?"
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-27 12:43 am (UTC)I would have seated my group anywhere we could find seats, and that might have been on either side of them. And, given I have a teeny weeny bladder, I would have made sure every bathroom break required me to walk in front of them. Can't help it if I have to go.