House of Horrors: A Halloween Poem
A sticky floor,
And chairs that squeak,
Children who cry and kick your seat.
The passing of gas.
The crunching of ice.
Jerks who still talk when they turn down the lights.
Slurping through straws.
Oohs and loud aahs.
LED screens that glow in the dark.
People take calls.
And start family brawls.
You’d think it was a shopping mall.
Sugar Babies!
Sugar Babies!
Junior Mints!
Call me a cynic,
But there’s always a critic,
Asinine narration, minute by minute.
When seats are aplenty,
Please tell me why,
Some nut case inevitably sits so close by?
Popcorn and fake butter
Can’t mask body odor.
You can’t bring yourself to look over your shoulder.
So many little horrors,
I pronounce and announce,
A movie theatre to me is but a haunted house.
And just when I think it cannot get worse,
Under the seat I feel a wad of gum,
The final sign I should not have come.
Sugar Babies!
Sugar Babies!
Junior Mints! ▼
Rich Barnett is the author of The Discreet Charms of a Bourgeois Beach Town and Fun with Dick and James.
He has not set foot in a movie theatre since 2010, but he is seriously considering a trip to the Movies at Midway to see Downton Abbey in The Cube, a 6,300 square foot theatre with a floor to ceiling screen. What could go wrong?