A customer comes out of a screening of ‘Wicked: For Good’ that’s been showing for about forty minutes.

Customer: “Are they going to keep singing?”

Me: “Uh, well, it is a musical, sir.”

Customer: “Ugh. I hate musicals.”

Me: “Did you want to go see a different movie?”

Customer: “No, I’ll just finish this since I’ve already started it. But I’m not gonna enjoy it!”

Me: “Well, if you’re sure.”

Customer: *As he walked back into his theater.* “Ugh. It was bad enough they sang all through the first movie…”

My coworker and I share a look:

Coworker: “Something something the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results something something…”

I’m leaving a movie theater, and I overhear a mother who seems to be furious with her teenager.

Mom: “Just wait until your dad hears about this!”

Teenager: “Mom! It’s not that big of a deal.”

Mom: “What you did was disgusting. It was a betrayal of my trust. It was a betrayal of everything I believe in, but most of all, you betrayed yourself. Once you have the two together, you can never enjoy the one without the other.”

Teenager: “Mooooom!”

Mom: “It’s no skin off my nose. I’ve never done what you did. You are never going to go back to a time that you haven’t done this.”

At this point, I am dying to know what this kid did, and I’m trying to stay near enough in the crowd to hopefully find out when they are joined by the father. The mother points accusingly at the kid:

Mom: “He had a soda in the movie theater.”

Teenager: “Mom, it wasn’t a soda; it was a lemonade!”

Mom: “You’ve mixed sugar and the movies. Now you will constantly want to snack while you’re watching a movie. You know I raised you never to eat in front of a screen!”

I’m in the movie theater, watching ‘The Dark Knight’ on opening weekend, so it’s a packed auditorium. Anyone who has seen the movie knows that the movie, while technically PG-13, is sooooo close to being R-rated you can practically feel it, with one scene demonstrating this involving a pencil.

The scene has played out, with The Joker character stating he will perform a trick to make the pencil disappear… and then he does so, involving some unfortunate henchman’s head.

Everyone in the auditorium gasps and guffaws at the scene, and then we hear one tiny little voice from a little boy:

Little Boy: “Dad? Where did the pencil go?”

A few people in the auditorium laugh.

Dad: *Quiet.* “He… uh… made it disappear. Now shush!”

Little Boy: *Louder.* “But where? Daaaad! I don’t get the trick?”

Dad: *Quiet.* “I’ll tell you after the movie! Be quiet?”

Little Boy: *Louder still.* “But Daaaad!”

Suddenly, a random moviegoer in the auditorium says as loudly as the boy:

Moviegoer: “It’s up in some bad guy’s braaaain, little guy!”

Cue more laughter, but no more questions from the little boy… until after the movie. The second the end credits start rolling:

Little Boy: “Daaaad! You said you would tell me after the movie!?”

Parents, please don’t bring seven-year-olds to hard PG-13s…

Customer: “What’s Final Destination: Bloodlines?”

Me: “It’s a horror movie. It’s the sixth in the series, but you don’t have to have seen any of the others to understand what’s going on.”

Customer: “Wait, so they have a film series called Final Destination, and this is the sixth one? Doesn’t sound very final.”

The customer laughs like he just made the best joke ever. I don’t know what to say, but the customer’s friend comes to the rescue.

Customer’s Friend: “Aren’t you currently playing a game called Final Fantasy 16?!”

The customer stopped smiling and got tickets to the eighth ‘Mission: Impossible’ movie.

It’s New Year’s Day, so the movie theater is packed with families coming in during the day to enjoy a day off together. A family is looking at the movie options:

Dad: “Mufasa? No, I don’t wanna see any CGI lions. Sonic? What’s that?”

Me: “It’s a movie about Sonic the Hedgehog. He’s a video game character.”

Dad: “Is he CGI?”

Me: “He is.”

Dad: “I don’t wanna see no CGI hedgehogs either.”

He continues to look at the selection.

Dad: “Moana 2? Bah. I didn’t like the first one. What’s Nosferatu?”

Me: “That’s a vampire horror movie, sir.”

I guess the ages of his children are about seven and ten.

Me: “It’s R-rated, and I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone under the age of seventeen.”

Dad: “Are the vampires CGI?”

Me: “No, they’re not.”

Dad: “Four tickets to, uh, Nots-Very-Too!”

Me: “Sir, as I said, this is a violent movie, with mature themes about sex and—”

Dad: “—No more f****** CGI animals! Four tickets!”

His wife seems to be content to go along with his movie choice, so I sell him the tickets. They go inside, and I turn to my coworker.

Me: “Hey, how many minutes into Nosferatu is it when the naked skeletal vampire gets his dong out?”

Coworker: “Hmm, around forty minutes, I think? Why?”

Me: “Warn [Manager] that in forty-five minutes he’s going to have an angry dad demanding a refund.”

We were wrong. The demand for the refund came forty-eight minutes later.