(A Guest Post by Harvey of Bad Example)
I was over at Susie of Practical Penumbra’s blog where she was complaining about parents who leave their children at her movie theater, unsupervised, and don’t pick them up until several hours after their movies end.
This is a problem.
However, as Isaac Newton once said, “for every problem, there is an equal and opposite solution.”
Yes, I have flunked a few physics exams in my day, why?
Anyway, here are my Top Ten solutions:
10. Start every sentence with “Back when I was your age…” until they cover their ears and run out the door, screaming about how you’re too old and you just don’t understand.
9. Sell them as slave labor & help bring Nike’s factories back to the good ol’ USA!
8. To keep them from running around & making a lot of noise, turn on the giant electromagnet you probably have installed in your ceiling, which will immediately hoist the little brats up by their piercings. Let ’em dangle there. It builds character.
7. Put on tiny sunglasses and a black raincoat. Walk around offering them a choice between a red and blue pill.
6. Use them to experiment with innovative new clown-car-packing techniques.
5. Tie them up with their iPod cords and toss the little bastards into the dumpster out back. Hopefully this will teach them not to purchase proper nouns that capitalize their second letters. Trendy little punks! shakes fist
4. Launch them into space and make them watch bad movies as part of an evil scientific experiment.
3. Don’t let them leave until they’ve worked up an entire Rocky Horror treatment for The Matrix. “We’ve got to find a phone” “CASTLES DON’T HAVE PHONES!*
2. Give them swords. Tell them “There can be only ONE!”
And the number one thing to do when children hang out in your lobby too long:
[looks at watch]
Aw crap. I gotta get to work.
Can I get a little help in the comments?
Why does it matter if you’re first? I’m first, but I feel no different from when I was second, or 37th.
Anyways, here’s #1:
“Kick the baby~!” Or, the teenagers in this case.
Can anyone say “Trebuchet”
Tell them you will continue to pelt them with milk duds until they pull thier damn pants up.
I’m only 20 years old, so I kind of know how these young thugs think. I think the #1 way to get rid of these vandals from your lobby is to simply make pro-Bush comments. To me, it seems like the ‘cool’ thing to do these days is to bash President Bush. We all know that they know nothing about politics, but they follow what seems to be popular i.e. Bush-bashing. So, with that in mind, start praising President Bush; I know for sure that they’ll leave.
R.I.P. Ronald Reagan
Later on,
Drew
Three words
Nerf Crotch Bat
Put your copy of “The Sound of Music”
on the projector.
Turn it WAY up.
No more kids. (except the few killed outright)
Well, I’m feeling curmudgeonly today, so my answer is: “call the cops.” When my sister was in junior high, it was all the rage for the kids her age to go to the movies, then, 10 minutes after the movie started, they’d make enough noise to get kicked out en masse. Then they’d mill around the outside of the theater for a while til the owners called the cops, at which point they all melted away.
And the number one thing to do when children hang out in your lobby too long:
Release the hounds!
Crank up La Boheme and watch them flee like cockroaches. The ones that stay will bleed out their ears or will start singing along.
Why punish the kids? Make the parents stay with them. There is nothing more agonizing for an adult than to watch some stinking teen flick. That’ll teach the parents to leave their brats for someone else to watch them.
Two words… Skeet Shoot.
Observe and take notes until you have a good idea how long each one will be left until the parents pick them up.
Once you have this information the fun begins.
Ten or so minutes before a certain kid’s parent is about to pick them up, have one of your younger employees approach them and ask if they’d like to ‘sneak’ into one of the “R” movies and let the kids into the theater. The parents show up, don’t see junior, then come in to ask the manager if they’ve seen their lil’ precious. Tell them…
“Hmmmmm. Oh yeah. They were hanging out in front when a van drove up. They went up to the passenger side and were talking to the men…it looked like they were giving directions or something. I’m not sure but I guess they got into the van. I just looked down for a second and when I looked up the van was gone. That must have been…oh…about three hours ago.”
I’m a librarian, and public libraries often deal with unattended children. When I worked at an urban, downtown library, the prostitutes often left their children behind as free day care while they went out and worked.
At my current library, our policy is to wait half an hour with the child, and then call the police. I would prefer to simply call the police as soon as the library closes.
Call Frank J.
According to my sweetie, who loves Frank J’s site:
“Fire up the chipper-shredder.”
Lock the doors,and send in a half dozen leather-clad midgets to recreate the worst scenes from ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Deliverance’,then take bets as to how long it takes those brats to tear down the doors.
fire at will
Practice with your laser grips. “Follow the bouncing red dot, children.” If they’ve seen enough action movies, they’ll know what that red dot means, and scatter for the exits! (Then when they complain to their Liberal parents who LET them behave so badly, you can practice the red dot with them, too!!!)
The Sound of Music?
The hills are alive,
and it makes me nervous…
Being in the minority here on IMAO.US as probably the only 15 year old on the site, I have to disagree with your stereotypical portrayal of teenagers. I do not own an iPod, I have no piercings, my waistband on my jeans is on my waist, I support President Bush (and understand current issues), I don’t listen to rap, I actually own “The Sound of Music” and “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” on DVD, and I don’t speak in the eccentric lingo made of acronyms and haplologies (i.e. were r u at? idk, u?)
That being said, although some of my peers may fit the image you depict of teenagers, to say that all teenagers are sagging pants wearing, iPod listening, pierced ear-eye-nose-tongue-belly button punk, ignorant Bush-bashing, rap-listening, spoiled rich lazy brats is no more true than saying, for example, that all black people are rap artists, you ageist right-wing bigots. Remember, we’re paying for your Social Security and the “massive deficit spending” (though that I seriously doubt.)
Well, I’m 21 years old and Air Force enlisted, and I think most of the guys I work with should be left alone by their parents. But, since we’re on the subject, talking with friends in obviously fake, loud ebonics works pretty well when you’re trying to be left alone. We’ve also tried crossing ourselves whenever one of them cusses. It’s funny to see the look on their faces. Heh, memories…
Defender of the Children: it’s not a ‘stereotypical portrayal’. It’s humor!!! If you really read this site frequently, you would know it’s all (or mostly) about humor. Besides, leave us old timers one of the joys of getting older: kvetching about youth. Believe it or not, you’ll be there one day, too! (And we will have already used up the Social Security, so you can kvetch about that, too!) BWA-HA-HA-HA
Funny you should mention children and movie theaters. I used to be a Movie Theater Manager (Baaaaaaaaaaaad job selection, btw), and I faced a situation like this once:
2 doormen informed me around 11 AM, that there were 2 kids who were begging patrons for food. They had been there for a couple hours, and after seeing films in 2 of the theaters, they got hungry. Short version, we asked and found out their mom had dumped them for the day, with no money for food or even a second ticket.
So I called the cops, who got the kids fed and contacted CPS.
When Mom arrived at 11 PM, some 14 hours after dropping off her kids, they arrested her for child abandonment. She actually claimed that once she dropped them off, their care and feeding was the theater’s duty.
Moral: Don’t test the patience of overworked and underpaid employees.
PS – the trebuchet would have been considered … for the Mom.
OT. I found out about Christmas and Aquaclaus. You can find that title if you go to Bob Rivers Show
Do like they did to us in BCT…
If you want a bunch of people to panic and scatter just open up some colored smoke grenades… when all the idiots try to play in the smoke (trust me… they will… they’re idiots) you open enough CS gas to calm LA down.
Unless the new thing is to carry an Israeli made pro-mask…
Defender – criticism duly noted, and right-wing ageist bigotism freely admitted.
Having said that, please note that I did say “children” instead of “teens”, so as to allow “old beyond their years” folks like yourself to look down their noses at ignorant 12-year-olds 🙂
By the way, drop me a line at harvolson-at-charter.net. Let’s talk about getting you a blog. Nothing saddens me more than seeing someone with a good vocabulary stuck as a comment lurker.
Seriously. E-mail me.
and btw, Defender, you are not paying for anything yet…you’re still a kid!
I used to work in the concession stand at a movie theater when I was Freshman in college. It was right next to this lower-income apartment building. Several of the kids would come over and hang out with us- it was sad, really. We just sort of took them in and befriended them. There was this one little guy named Buddy- he was my favorite. Probably all of 6 years old, if that. I kind of adopted him- took him to dinner, brought him to my house to see my dog’s puppies, bought him Christmas presents. He was a great kid trying to make it out of a crappy situation. I still feel sorry for him. Now that I have my own kids, I couldn’t imagine letting my kids hang out at a movie theater like that!
We never called the cops unless the kids were disruptive and wouldn’t leave.
Hey Moehawk lay off the Defender, I was paying at 14 with my measily job at the DQ. And even if Defender isn’t paying yet, he will be, boy will he!
Hey Moehawk lay off the Defender, I was paying at 14 with my measily job at the DQ. And even if Defender isn’t paying yet, he will be, boy will he!
All of the above seem to represent an improvement over this:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04363/433421.stm
Yes, moehawk, I am still a kid, but I do make and spend my own money. I work for my church. And while I don’t pay taxes yet, someday, I will. But I do see your point that most kids waste their parents’ money and then complain about how much they have to spend.
Thanks to all the people who have taken my side. For the record, I do understand IMAO is humor, and I’ve been around since the days of the limey. It’s just that it’s unfair to read about how people don’t realize that there’s a sane portion of the 18-and under crowd.
No comments were taken too offensively, just reminding everyone that we’re human beings too.
Play Nat King Cole until their little heads explode?
“Even though, we’re not full grown, we’ve got problems all our own. Kids are people too.”–Bob McAllister
I’m under eighteen. I like iPods, they play music. I like President Bush too though. And movie theaters. And trebuchets. And Ayn Rand. I’m an age group without a country.
Ok D.O.C (hey that spells doc!), but give us some ideas on how to deal with your age related commrades.
btw Sound of Music ok, but Mr Smith Goes to Washington? You have me worried.
As for my idea, I was first thinking something with Nambla, but I might get trouble with the ACLU for infringing on ther rights. I am going to second the MST3K suggestion, and just play the same move over and over agin, I am thinking Zombie Nightmare, or Master Ninjia.
My personal MST3K favorite is GirlsTown & oh yeah… The Head that Wouldn’t Die! (…great,now i’m gonna drive home singing the mst3k theme song… “in the not to distant future….”)
La la la!