My boss thinks I'm a good guy.

It's time for another theater story!  This one's not that great, but I figure a few people might get some laughs out of it.  I think this one happened last summer.  I was working the concession stand at my theater job, just minding my own business.  There was a couple of other guys working that day as well, but I recall being the only one behind the counter at the time.  

Anyway, enough stalling!  Time to get on with it!  I had an extremely awkward experience at work that day, except I hadn't realized that it was awkward at the time.  During a long, slow day, I enter my work mode.  This means that my brain turns off all functions not relating to work.  In other words, I become a work zombie.  I do what I need to do and don't think any more than I have to.  It's just one way to get through the day.

So yeah, a couple of customers enter the theater and walk right up to where I'm working to buy their snacks.  I assume they must've already had tickets because they didn't go to the box office first.  It was a woman and her teenage daughter.  I didn't really get a good look at them because I was in my work zone.  I was either looking at my cash register or at the snacks I was preparing.  They bought their stuff, I gave them their change, and then they went in to go see their movie.  There's nothing out of the ordinary about that, right?  WRONG!  

However, I had thought that everything about that transaction was totally normal until I saw my boss's reaction to the whole event.  He was talking to one of my coworkers about what a good guy I am.  Just really laying on the compliments about what an upstanding gent I must be.  Confused by this, I asked my boss what I had done to deserve such praise.  He was surprised that I didn't know.  

He then informed me that the woman I had just sold snacks to had one of her more feminine features completely exposed since she walked in to the theater.  From my boss's perspective, I had just treated an exhibitionist like any other customer and handled an extremely awkward situation like a complete professional.  The truth is that I was just sleepy and incapable of paying attention.  I honestly have no idea how I would have reacted if I was paying better attention.  I imagine that I would be shocked at the very least.  I guess the lesson in this story is that professionalism can be its own reward.

P.S.  NO!  The lesson is NOT "wake up and smell the roses" or any variation of that!  Get your mind out of the gutter, you pervert!

Flash Flood Rush

Here's another exciting story about me working in a movie theater.  This one takes place a few years back.  It was a slow day in the thearer.  I mean REALLY slow.  We had NO customers.  It was a beautiful sunny summer day, and that means everyone was at the beach.  Slow days are almost worse than busy days because of the soul crushing monotony.  Every second takes an eon to pass, and all you can do is stare at the clock while vainly willing time to move faster.  Anyway, that day was such a day.  AT FIRST. 

The boss I had at the time, knowing that it was gonna be a slow day, had the brilliant idea that he could pay less employees by bringing in only one worker for the day.  That worker was me.  Usually it takes three workers to run the theater on a regular day (plus one manager).  One person runs the box office, another runs the concession stand, and another is the doorman.  However, the manager at that time thought I could basicly cover all three positions since we weren't gonna have any customers anyway.

It all went fine for the first few hours.  The sun was shining brightly and there wasn't a single customer in sight.  Have you ever seen Little Shop of Horrors?  You know the scene where the main characters are all in the plant shop and they look so bored because they don't have any customers?  They're literaly falling out of their seats due to the deadness (symbolized by their plants all being dead, which is probably why they had no customers)?  It was like that.  Except I was ALONE.  And I didn't even have a man-eating alien plant to amuse me.

It was at this point, perhaps, that God decided to take pity on me and send a little activity my way.  Either that or the weather man decided to have a few lols on any beach-hopefuls that day.  In the span of maybe 5 minutes, the sky went from beautiful and sunny to dark and raining cats and dogs.  It was raining so hard that you could probably shower off on your front lawn after rolling in the mud for a few hours.

Now let's play a game.  A little make-believe.  Pretend that you are a tired, stressed out parent planning to bring your kids to the beach for the day.  The tiny tots are hyper and excited to bounce around go swimming.  You're just glad to have found something to keep them occupied for the day.  You get to the beach and it's beautiful.  The kids are playing and you and your significant other (be that other a man, woman, or imaginary friend) finally can relax on the sand.  Suddenly, you're soaking wet and freezing.  Someone decided to rain on your parade.  Literally.  The kids are crying because you're yanking them out of the ocean and making a mad dash for the car.  This is bad.  You need a plan B and you need it right now.  However, you have an idea!  What's fun and doesn't let rain fall on your head?  Going to the movies!  Surely that's the way to salavge this fiasco of a family outing.  You and every other parent on the beach has this same idea.

Cut back to me being super bored in an empty theater, amused by the sudden weather change.  At least it was something to watch.  But wait!  What's that I see on the horizon?  It's a stampede of families all rushing for the theater door!  And the only defense between my place of employment and the frothy hoard of desperate parents and crying kids is me!  To make an already long story short, the end result was me running back and forth between two registers trying to sell tickets, rip tickets, and sell snacks all on my own.  For a MOB!  It was quite hectic and I apologized to many customers for making them wait so long.  Also, I burnt the popcorn and had to prop the front door open to vent the smoke.  The moral of this story is to expect the best, but prepare for the worst.  Also, don't be too cheap to staff more than one person at a time.

P.S.  That manager doesn't work at my theater anymore.

Harry Potter premier shenanigans.

For those of you who don't know, I work in a movie theater.  I have had many interesting experiences while working in the theater, and tonight was one of the funnier ones.  It was the premier for the last Harry Potter movie, Deathly Hallows Part 2.  This means that we were showing it for the first time at midnight, because that makes it more special, I guess.  Anyway, what this meant for me was that I'd be working late and would have to deal with a theater packed with loud teenagers. 

I had already worked a full shift, so I was tired before the customers even started lining up.  Basically, this movie showing was going to be kind of a big deal.  It's the last Harry Potter movie and every single show everywhere sold out fast.  I seriously won't be surprised if this movie breaks some box office records.  Anyway, people start showing up and getting in line at about 11 pm.  We had them line up inside the theater hallway so they wouldn't have to wait outside.  There was also an annoying reporter who came to take pictures of the line up.  She was bossy and annoying.  Also, annoying.  It's not like she called us ahead of time or anything.  She just showed up and started taking pictures and harassed our customers to get them to pose or whatever.

Enough side quests!  Back to the main plot!  So yeah, we had the people line up in the theater.  There were some people in costumes, which was kinda fun.  I saw one guy with a pointy hat and a girl dressed like Voldemort.  Lots of people had magic wands, be they actual movie replicas or sticks they picked up in their back yard.  There were two other girls who either had very elaborate witch costumes or else they were just goths.  Probably goths. 

Either way, they were all really loud!  Such noisy loudness they had!  This was bad since there were other people in other theaters watching other movies.  These people paid good money and we couldn't have them demanding refunds because of our loud Harry Potter line up.  I tried my best to keep the noise down, but to no avail.  At first I appealed to their sense of sympathy and told them how they were ruining the other movies for people.  Didn't work.  I later resorted to threatening to spoil the movie for them by telling them what happens.  One guy yelled out that I can't do that.  I told him that I can do whatever I want.  This made my boss chuckle, so bonus points for me.  I guess I showed that random guy in line.  Anyhow, nothing I did could make them all quiet down so I eventually gave up.  That degree in youth education really came in handy.

Eventually, we got the whole crowd into the theater and seated them so we could start the movie.  It was at this point that my boss and one of my coworkers came up with a great idea for a prank.  One of my boss's friends named Maggie was there to watch the movie.  So my boss and coworker got me to walk up to the front of the theater to make an announcement.  My involvement in the prank was essential because I'm really good at keeping a straight face while joking. 

So I get up in front of the theater and I say, "Attention everyone please!  We'll now be announcing the winner of our exclusive Harry Potter raffle."  The auidence is confused because of course there was no raffle.  "You could have bought tickets for the raffle all through out this week, but it's too late now.  Anyway, the prize is an actual movie prop from the set of Harry Potter part 7, Deathly Hallows and all that.  It's an actual broom used during one of the flying scenes in the movie."  The audience is very excited now, but of course there was no prop and there was no raffle.  They were totally buying it.  Lots of them were upset that they didn't know about the raffle, but I was busy using all of my energy to keep from cracking a smile.  I take a piece of folded paper out and continue.  "So yeah, the winner of the raffle is..."  At this point, I realized that I only knew Maggie's first name, and I couldn't just say Maggie because there might be like 10 girls named Maggie there.  I had to think of a fake last name fast.  "The winner is Maggie Witwicky!  You can pick up your authentic Harry Potter movie prop at the counter after the show."  That's right.  I used the last name of the main character of the Transformers movies.  The audeince exploded and were all either cheering or expressing disappointment that they didn't win.  Holding my laughter in, I then left the theater with my boss and coworker.  We all cracked up after we were away from the audeince and it was awesome.  Many lols were had for the rest of the night.  My boss later told me that the whole crowd was still talking about the raffle through out the previews and were asking around for who Maggie Witwicky was.  I guess the moral of the story is that you shouldn't believe everything you hear.  Either that or don't troll the usher because the usher will troll you.

P.S.  I was there during one of the previews.  It was for the next Twilight movie.  Aparently 90% of HP's female fans are also Twilight fans because they all started screaming happily during the preview.  When I saw that this new movie was only going to be PART ONE of the last Twilight book I said, "Aw man!  There's gonna be TWO more of these that I've gotta deal with?!  I thought I was almost done with this forever!  I hate Twilight!"  My boss told me to keep quiet or else we'd be murdered by rabid fan girls.  Bonus moral: Twilight sucks.

My most akward church experience EVER.

Well, I haven't really planned anything just yet, but I figured I might as well post a quick story just to get some content up.  This is the story of my most awkward experience in a church EVER.  It was a few years ago that I was attending a new church.  That is, the church was new to me.  I was trying out all different sorts of churches to gather different experiences since I was training to become a pastor one day. 

Anyway, this particular church was pretty decent at first.  It had an ethnicly diverse congregation, which is good.  I like to see all sorts of people at church together.  The pastor was VERY old school.  While this can be good sometimes, it can lead to akwardness in some situations.  Anyway, this pastor did something during one church service that created the MOST AKWARD experience I've ever had in a church in my life.

It all started out as a normal Sunday service.  We were in the middle of the worship part of the service.  You know, they put song lyrics up on a screen and everyone all sings together about how awesome God is and stuff.  Cool beans.  But then the pastor got up on stage and motioned for the worship band to put the tunes on pause.  He got on the mic to make an announcement.  What he said will be forever tatooed in my brain forever.  He said, "Now I want all of you African American brothers to know that if you want to do that yodelling thing that you do while you sing, then that's perfectly fine.  Feel free to do so!"  I don't know if that's a perfect quote but the term "yodelling" was DEFINATELY used. 

As soon as he said this, the biggest akward silence I'd ever heard spread through out the church.  No one knew how to react.  I can only assume that what the pastor refered to as yodelling was meant to be something like the style of singing you hear in R&B music.  You know, where the vocalist displays their skills by moving up and down a scale?  Anyway, it was all kinds of messed up that the pastor said that.  He basicly said that all black people sing like R&B singers.  After the initial shock wore off, the entire church just went on with the service and pretended that it never happened.  Needless to say, I switched out of that church as soon as possible (for more reasons than this, but those are stories for another time).  My friend (who was there) and I still like to talk about how weird and akward it was.  I guess comedy equals tragedy plus time.