I worked at a movie theater in the concession area. Tuesdays were $5 ticket night, our busiest night. I was working a Tuesday night and I had a line of maybe ten to fifteen customers. A guy got in front of the next customer.

Guy: “I want my free refill on this popcorn.”

Me: “Sir, if you want a refill, you will need to go to the end of the line. There are some people in this line that haven’t bought their popcorn yet.”

He gave me a dirty look and walked away. About an hour or more went by and I saw the guy again. He came up with his wife and she dumped an Icee on my head.

Lady: “You’re supposed to treat your guests. This is what happens when you don’t.”

They walked out of the movie theater after that. I’ll never forget that, and it’s almost been five years.

Our small theater has a self-serve butter and soda station that usually has straws stocked in it. However, over the last month and a half, we’ve had a serious problem with the annoying local college kids from across the road coming in and secretly stealing copious amounts of our straws to take back to their dorms. We’ve unfortunately had to make the call to start handing out straws at concessions and limiting the number we can give to each customer. It’s the only way to make sure the situation stops.

A twenty-something comes up to the concession stand and buys a medium popcorn. He goes over to the butter station and then immediately comes back.

Customer: “Where are the straws?”

Me: “Oh, we’re handing them out at the concession stand.”

Customer: *With a crap-eating grin* “Cool. Lemme get about twenty.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I’m not giving you twenty straws.”

Customer: “Come on, man, I need them.”

Me: *Bluntly* “You don’t need twenty straws.”

Customer: “I wanna do the butter trick! And I need some straws for my dorm.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but that’s exactly the issue. The straws are for theater customers, not dorm rooms. I can give you one for butter if you absolutely insist, but that’s it.”

Customer: “Come on, man! This is bulls***! I need those straws!”

Me: “So do other customers. I’m not giving you twenty straws.”

He stormed away without his straw for butter. He then came back and tried to get a coworker to give him twenty straws. She didn’t give them to him, either.

I’m working in the box office on a slow day when a man who looks to be in his mid-fifties enters the building and walks in.

Man: “Are you hiring?”

Me: “Not at the moment. We just finished hiring new employees the other day. But if you’re interested in working here, keep an eye out on our website, as we usually hire new employees multiple times a year.”

Man: “Well, that’s the thing. I heard you were hiring and applied a month ago, and I wasn’t selected to be interviewed.”

Me: “Ah, I’m sorry. We usually get a lot of applications when we are hiring, so I wouldn’t take it personally. If you’re still interested in working here, I’d say just keep putting in applications, and chances are, sooner or later, you’ll get an interview.”

He narrows his eyes and becomes suddenly furious.

Man: “I demand to know why I didn’t get an interview!”

Me: *Taken aback* “I’m sorry?”

Man: *Shouting* “I need a job! And I demand to know why I didn’t get an interview!”

Me: “Sir, I have no way of knowing why you didn’t get an interview. It could be any number of factors. Plus, like I said, we get a lot of applications, and we can’t necessarily interview and hire everyone.”

Man: “I need a job! And I need money! I’m new in town! And I don’t have anything! I want a g**d*** interview!”

Me: “Sir, please do not shout in our lobby.”

Man: *Continuing to shout* “Why wasn’t I given an interview?!”

He then starts swearing and screaming weird, excessively detailed tragic stories from his life for about a full minute — people he knows who died, people he knows who are in jail, etc.

My manager hears the racket and comes out of her office. She calmly talks him down and asks him for his name and phone number so she can “check his application and see if we could fit in an interview for him.” This seems to please him and he finally leaves.

Me: *Shocked* “Are you honestly going to give him an interview?”

Manager: “No, I just needed his name so I can flag it in our system and put out an alert to ignore any applications from him in the future. There’s no way in h*** I’m giving that guy a job. I’m not having someone that volatile working with you guys. If he comes back and acts up again, get me and I’ll call the police.”

To his credit, he came back about a week later and offered a genuine-sounding apology for his behavior, which he attributed to a recent family death putting him on edge. He also made it clear that he knew he wouldn’t get a job with us due to his outburst. We haven’t seen him since. I do hope that he’s getting over his issues, though.

I work in a movie theater. On Tuesdays, all popcorn and tickets are half off if you have our company’s app.

An older couple comes in on a Tuesday. The guy keeps getting upset that his tickets aren’t half off but he won’t give me any of the information that I need to make them half off.

Me: “Sir, I need your phone number and email address.”

But he keeps saying:

Customer: “You don’t need any of that! We come here all the time!”

Me: “Do you have the [Theater] app?”

Customer: “Yes!”

Me: “Then let me scan your QR code and—”

Customer: “You can’t do all that; I don’t have the app!”

I felt very sorry for his poor wife who kept trying to give me the information but kept getting cut off by her husband telling her to shut it.

Spoiler alert! The movie “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is playing. As many of you know, the post-credits scene is the teaser-trailer for the movie “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” About five days after “Spider-Man: No Way Home” premiered, Marvel went ahead and released the teaser-trailer online, making the fact it’s a post-credit scene in “No Way Home” a bit redundant.

As is often the case with Marvel movies, we have to keep an eye out on people trying to record the screen. It’s been about ten days since the movie was released, and I’m waiting to clean the theater with a supervisor right before the post-credit scene plays. I see a guy whipping out his phone to record the post-credit “Doctor Strange” trailer. I wander up to him.

Me: “First of all, you can’t be recording the screen. Second, Marvel actually released the post-credit scene online, so there’s no reason to record it, anyway.”

Customer: “Oh, h*** no! They don’t release the credits scenes online! That’s just stupid! You just don’t want me to record! I’m recording this! I’m getting a million views for my channel and promoting my band!”

Me: “I guarantee you’re not going to get a million views given the scene was already officially released online, and chances are, your video is just going to get copyright flagged, anyway.”

Supervisor: *Quietly to me* “Come here.”

I wander back to my supervisor. The customer ignores me and records the screen. My supervisor laughs and pulls out his phone. As soon as the scene is done, my supervisor walks down and holds his phone up in front of the guy’s face with the teaser-trailer loaded up.

Supervisor: “Look familiar? Marvel put this online like five days ago.”

The guy immediately looks completely and utterly defeated. He stands up and sadly walks away.

Customer: “Aw, man… S***. I was gonna get a million views… S***.”

We technically should have stopped him, but it was worth it to let him do it just to see the reaction on his face at the end.