R is for Rant

A curious and rather frustrating thing happened to me on Saturday. I came up against the cinema establishment's finest (insert heavily ironic tone) and came away with a bloody nose. It went something like this:

My son and four of his friends wanted to see the latest Resident Evil flick--cute girl kicks lots of zombie ass in post-apocalyptic Las Vegas--so I am volunteered as driver to above mentioned establishment.

I dropped them off at the door and pulled away, but within moments I get a phone call requesting that I return to "give my permission." Okay.

So I go to the ticket window and say to the ticket person: "They have my permission." Whereupon I am informed that unless I also buy a ticket and see the film, they cannot attend. Okay.

So I say, "Alright, then, I'll buy a ticket." Whereupon I am asked, "Are you the legal guardian of these children?" "Yes, I'm their aunt," I said, lying *convincingly*, I thought. The ticket person repeated, "Are you the legal guardian according to the court of law?"

Here is where I lost my cool. I mean, how can they possibly enforce this? Even legal parents don't go around carrying some kind of "offspring" identification. It's not like they can card for this, you know? My driver's license does not read Hair: Red, Eyes: Blue, Offspring: 1 now does it?

So, according to the cinema establishment's finest, as a film goer, I have to put up with idiots bringing in their screaming babies because they have "legal guardian" status, but I can't bring five basically well-behaved teenagers?

I was spurred by my righteous indignation into a little research. It was my impression, based on the age and prim disapproval of the woman at the ticket window, that this was some attempt at enforcing some kind of moral code. But after reading into it a bit it turns out that most theaters are more concerned with the behaviour of unsupervised teens than anything else. Interestingly, the "rules" are all over the place. Some places require parent permission at the very least. Others require a parent to accompany the child. Still others set a limit at two children per legal adult. Others specify the adult must be 25 years or older. Some places refuse to allow children into adult movies starting after 7pm. Others use price as a factor and hope to discourage people from bringing their kids by charging adult prices only for the evening pictures. Others try to educate the masses, requiring parents and children attend "theater etiquette" classes together before the kids are allowed in on their own. However, most teens have observed that if they go to the big cineplexes, nobody really cares who is buying the ticket.

I think I just need to be a better liar. Nobody's going to believe I've given birth to five teens of the same approximate age, but I could try to swing this scenario: Mo and Curly there, those are my foster kids; and poor little Larry, I adopted him when my sister passed last year (may she rest in peace and pray don't mention another word I'm still grieving); Tom and Jerry here are my biological sons by three different possible fathers; and me? I'm the Whore of Babylon. Now are you going to sell me those tickets? Or am I going to have to break into your house some unspecified night, strap you to your sofa, and force you to watch High School Musical until your eyes bleed?