Nothing Civil About This War

(My partner and I have been waiting for months to see “Captain America: Civil War,” and going to the movies is a very special occasion for us due to finances. We decide on a theater located on the top floor of a rather nice mall that is surrounded by a food court, since prices are fair and the location is close. We pay and take our seats in the front, and not too long after the previews start someone sits directly behind us and begins noisily eating out of a paper bag. My partner turns and informs me they are eating a burger out of a paper bag and I figure they will be done soon. Except, they have an entire large backpack FULL of burgers, and they proceed to eat them as noisily as possible all the way through the credits and half an hour into the movie itself! My partner confirms that they are eating burger after burger like their backpack is a dispenser, and the paper on each burger is crinkled so loudly and purposely that I cannot hear most of the dialogue. I’m talking continuous and endless loud crinkling, like an Internet troll decided to come to the movies. Fed up, I decide to do what I never do and complain. This theater is two stories, and to get to the desk I have to go down an escalator and across the lobby. When I get to the concessions desk, a very nice guy calls a manager when I explain the problem, and whispers quickly that he had the same issue a week ago and not to expect any real help. A female manager arrives and I explain to her my issue. She looks incredibly bored.)

Manager: “What do you want me to do about it?”

Me: “You have a no outside food and drink policy.”

Manager: “Yeah, but it’s not like we can enforce it; we’re right next to the food court.”

Me: “So, what am I supposed to do? I can’t hear, and have missed a big part of the movie.”

Manager: *sighs* “I can come up behind you and talk to them, but that is really it.”

Me: “That’s fine.”

(I went back upstairs and into my theater, where the guy was STILL eating noisy, paper-wrapped burgers and continued to do so for an additional twenty minutes. I could hear everything behind me and looked back several times, and the manager never came into the theater, at all. When we left after the credits, we counted over a dozen burger wrappers thrown all over the aisle behind us. I was upset that nothing was done and that the manager lied and never came to check, so I decided to write a formal online complaint on the company website. Apparently those complaints go directly to the managers, and the manager I talked to decided to answer and state that I was making too big of a deal out of this. Then she lied and said she did come to the theater, and that their was no evidence after the show of outside food or drink. Then she offered me free passes to shut me up! I was pretty upset that my complaint got brushed aside twice by the same awful manager, who apparently just liked to lie. I decided to not push it further, as I had clearly hit a wall, and refused the passes. Who wants to go to a movie they can’t hear? I went back about eight months later and didn’t see her, so hopefully she works somewhere else now.)