This past weekend I went to see Iron Man with some friends and despite every intention I had to have a good time, it was not meant to be so.
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the movie. It’s not going to win any awards or change the way movies are made, but it was an enjoyable comic book movie that didn’t take itself to seriously (I’m looking at you Superman Returns) or play things too stupidly (I’m looking at you Fantastic Four, specifically the vapid performance by Jessica Alba). It was just fun. One of us commented that it could have used more punching and explosions, and while that certainly wouldn’t have hurt things, I feel it is important to say I enjoyed it the way it was.
What really bothered me was the coterie of douchebags seated behind us.
Throughout the entire movie they were ridiculously irritating. They’d talk and make stupid jokes just until the point where I was ready to stand up and tell them to shut the fuck up when they’d clam up for a while. They’d throw popcorn at each other (or us. I’m not sure, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt) and I’d get hit a few times and wait for the next piece to hit me before getting up to tell them to stop throwing shit, but that piece would never come. The entire movie went that way. Five minutes of irritation every 15 minutes for 126 minutes. It was absolutely maddening.
It also didn’t help that the idiot man-child in front of me kept saying “boom” right before anything would explode, but his daughters were elbowing him in the ribs for that, so it was kept to a minimum.
(I’ve mentioned before about how OCD I am about movies, and you can read this if you want an extremely long digression.)
On the way out of the movie two members of our group went to the bathroom while my brother and I waited in the lobby. Outside I could see the dozen or so 14-year-olds, all with shit eating grins, carrying on and generally being awkward pubescent assfaces.
I wasn’t sure if they were the ones who had been such amazing dicks during the movie, but I didn’t see any other teenage groups in the theater with us, so I was pretty sure it was them. Despite that I was again willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and allow bygones to be bygones.
That is, until we were outside and one of the shrivel-dicks leaned toward me and said, “Yeah! Iron Man rocked, right guys?” at which point I lost it.
I was a ball of pure unbridled OCD rage and I was focusing my hate on the prick that had been unlucky enough to speak up. I’m not sure what I exactly said, but I’m told I called them all “cockbags” before getting in the face of the loudmouth. He kept backing away as I kept walking toward him, and I remember saying something along the lines of, “You little fuckers think you’re fucking funny? You like to throw shit and ruin the movie for everyone else you little piece of shit?”
Then one of the other kids told me to calm down so I got up in his face and started asking him the most ridiculous question I could think of:
“What’s your name you little shit?”
“What?”
“Tell me your name.”
“Nothing.”
“What’s your fucking name?”
“Uh… Joe.”
“Fuck you.”
Then I stepped towards him, he flinched, and I knew I had done enough. Or possibly too much. I’m still not sure. I never touched any of them, and I never would have, but I was still really fucking pissed. Then I remembered I had a bag of M&Ms in my pocket.
“You little fuckers think it’s funny to throw candy? Huh? You think that’s funny? Yeah, it’s real fucking funny. Let’s see how you like it.”
And I threw a huge handful of candy at them that I had been gathering into my hands as I was talking to them. I only hit 3 or 4 of them with the candy, but that was enough. I was done with them at that point.
I walked over to my friends and we started walking to the car. Once we were far enough away they started to laugh, and I could tell it was false bravado, but at that point I didn’t care what they were doing.
In retrospect I’m still not sure it’s something I would have done again in the same situation, but at the very least I hope the little shitfucks learn that if you irritate the wrong person at the movies, it could come back to bite you in the ass. Or throw candy in your face, in this case.
