Seat stealers put film night in bad light

YOU people, you know who you are, you thumb your nose at the rules and skirt around the unspoken laws of life.

Oh, there is nothing more mildly frustrating in this wild walk of a life that causes the hate to bubble up within, like a volcano of mild annoyance.

If you don’t know what I am on about and you haven’t had one of these people palm the rules in your face, here is a little example from the other night.

I’d taken my wife for a romantic dinner of McDonald’s drive- through, being the classy bloke that I am, and we ate in the car as we listened to love songs.

I’m not normally a terrible date but you must understand, we were in a hurry to go and watch the new Terminator at the cinema; I was so well prepared I sourced tickets earlier in the day so I didn’t have to concern myself with a line. We strolled into the cinema, walked up to the back to find my allotted seat and lo and behold, some goons had taken our spots.

I looked down at my ticket to make sure I was in the right row, walked back to look at the row letter, looked up and they looked at me, made eye contact.

Now two things could have happened: they could play by the unspoken rules and go “oh sorry mate, we just jumped in your spot, we were actually a few seats over” or they could do what they did and look at me; I look at them, shoulders raised, and they looked back at the screen.

I was furious but being the kind of person who hates unnecessary confrontation, because I deal with it so much in my work life, I went and sat somewhere else and bubbled.

Oh dear God how I bubbled; I couldn’t enjoy the first 20 minutes of the movie, I was so infuriated. I mean, they know they were in the wrong, they clearly weren’t supposed to be sitting there, I indicated it was my seat and you gosh darn sons of guns didn’t bloody move.

Then I had to sit there, anxiously waiting for someone else to enter the cinema, walk up to me and do the look, and I would have gone, “sorry mate, we were supposed to sit somewhere else, here’s your seat,” which thankfully didn’t happen.

Hate is too strong a word to describe how I feel about these seat stealers but I tell you what, it was a very severe disliking.

Now you may think, “Chris, you’re making mountains out of molehills,” and you’re right, but I’ll be damned if I’m in the wrong.”

If everyone played by the rules you wouldn’t be sitting there reading me carrying on like a pork chop.