Monday, January 2, 2012

Monday Musings.

Did you ever stop to think how gross the food and drink is at a movie theater? I don't mean that nachos are gonna clog your arteries, or popcorn is soaked in artificial butter. What I mean is how germy it is.

The person behind the counter takes your bag in one hand and a scoop in the other, and runs it clean through the popcorn to scoop it up, while the rest of the popcorn slides over their hand and arm. Repeatedly. Watch them next time--you'll see how their entire hand and arm come into direct contact with the popcorn. Trust me; you'll see.



Remember, they've been handling money and God knows what else.



And they usually lay your popcorn bucket right in the mass of popcorn. Think of what this means if someone's popcorn is a refill--a stranger has been pawing through that bucket with greasy, saliva-tainted, unwashed fingers, filling their popcorn bucket with germs, usually placing their bucket on the FLOOR of the theater in between munchings, and now that bucket is lying right the fuck in the popcorn machine.


Then, when the popcorn scooper is done, they just drop the popcorn scoop (that they've been handling with their bare hands) right there in the popcorn.



And the soda pop--the ice they use is just a hotcoldbed of disease. The ice sits there in a wide-open container right under the soda nozzles, collecting dust and sneezes alike. Then they scoop it, in a manner not unlike the scoopage of popcorn, and contact with their hand is likely. Then they drop the scoop into the ice. They also tend to shove the whole scoop in your pop cup when filling it. This is particularly bad when you again consider refills.

We were at the theater on New Year's Eve, and after the movie, my husband went for his refill of Coke Zero. The cashier concessionaire ladyperson scooped the ice, then shoved the entire scoop down into his cup--the cup he'd been drinking from and backwashing in. The scoop easily came into direct contact with his saliva. And therefore thousands of other people's saliva. I had to look away and say a prayer to the Patron Saint of Spit to get through it.

So the next time you are at the theater, pay special attention to the popcorn scoopage and the soft drink makeage. You'll never look at it the same way again.

10 comments:

  1. That is why I don't go to the movies

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  2. I mean, I suppose one could go to a movie and just not get any snacks, but then you still have to deal with sitting in a chair that I'm always convinced will have lice on it, and being near the arm-rests which are like the dirtiest things on earth, and breathing the air while others cough and sneeze around you, etc.

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  3. I don't get stuff at the movies, but in all honesty the tightwad in me wins out over the germaphobe on that one. Movie popcorn is marked up something like 1300%. Really.

    To be honest, it's the seats that give me the cheevies. They are cloth, so you know they are never properly cleaned. They just feel so gross, and most of them are stained. Icky.

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  4. I know, Janice, the prices are OOC. And the seats--I constantly worry that I'll pick up lice or bedbugs from them. :/

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  5. I buy boxed candies and wipe the box down with a wet one.

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  6. Good for you, Mandi. :) Curious, do you wipe off other things that enter your house, like groceries?

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  7. Depends on where I bought it, what it is, etc. I tend to pick boxes from the back of the shelf.

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  8. i always smuggle in my own snacks, including drinks in my purse. saves money too.
    now if someone would just invent a theatre seat cover like the things people put in grocery carts for babies now. or maybe disposable ones like toilet seat covers in public bathrooms.

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  9. My sister worked at a movie theater and they made all the popcorn on one day (I think it was Thursday). So that popcorn you bought on Wednesday was almost a week old in ADDITION to it being totally germy and gross.

    Even knowing this, I still enjoy buying popcorn at the movies...

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  10. And let's not forget the people who cut a hole in the bottom of the bucket to put their dick in .... wait, do people still do that? anyway, gross.

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