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.