Before push comes to shove and a severe beating is administered to a cinema seat protector, a numbered ticketing system should seriously be introduced at local movie cinemas. There’s nothing more frustrating than an absentee seat holder. After waiting to get into the cinema and then bump through the dark until your eyes become adjusted, you finally find a vacant row of seats and proceed to sit when a voice calls from the darkness, “Yuh cyah siddong dey, dais somebody seat!” Cool seen, no problem, move on to a next row and the same thing happens again until you realise that the cinema is filled with people who are either at the snack counter getting popcorn and chicken nuggets or still on their way to the movies, leaving you to sit in the front rows where your seating angle constantly makes you feel as if blast off is in T-minus ten seconds.
Instead of cinema attendants checking people’s bag to see if they’re sneaking in KFC and souse they should ask if you’ll actually be sitting in a specific seat until the movie starts and if not, to go to the snack counter before entering to avoid any action that could be taken against them in the vast darkness. I’m not a violent fellow but this thing is starting to get out of hand. The next time I get blocked, a soft drink might accidentally open and people sprayed. Accidents do happen. Who knows, there might even be a hail of cole slaw as well. Know this, cinemagoers, neither politeness nor supplication will grant you hearing from a cinema seat protector. Recently, at a popular Cineplex, a man and his lady friend went through the cinema row by row trying to find seating but were denied as the constant refrain was always “Somebody sitting dong dey.”
Frustrated, the couple decided to occupy two seats that could have only been in use by an apparition with a penchant for the moving pictures. They were met with hostility by a man who was ‘keeping’ two seats for somebody. A row ensued with both parties hurling profanities and threatening an all out war that was to commence immediately after the show at the Cineplex car park. An attendant came to the aid of the keeper of the seat and advised that the couple find alternative seating arrangements. Reluctantly, and visibly wounded by the attendant’s disregard for their claim, the embarrassed couple had to leave the cinema. Clearly there is a need for a more efficient seating policy at the nation’s movie houses.
