Lemme Juss...Start A Supermarket Chain

Here we go. Time to use it.

So there's this movie theater in my town, if you can even call it that, because it is more akin to a series of 4 large family rooms tuned to one of the three HBOs. Let's call it a "cinema," because that's what they call it. For the 15 years I have lived in my town, this place has unwaveringly been the last resort of theater selection when you want to sit back and eat Smarties with Sprite to see if your bladder explodes. The reason for this is not only the breathtakingly low quality of the theater seats, screen, food, floor, air, etc., but sometimes primarily, the movie selection. Only four movies play at a time, and those four movies are almost always the movies you have no interest whatsoever in seeing with a man six rows behind you jerking it to a dream he had last night about Melanie Griffith. In fact, as a result of this latent sexual energy, creeptacular as it may be, the only reason a self-respecting human would venture to this cesspool of cinema during their junior high years was to have a place one could make a move on one's soon-to-be-make-out partner-for-the-month. Needless to say, this place notoriously had non-existent service, employing the lowest-rung youth members of the societal ladder to basically run the place. In short, it's a complete and utter joke.

The theater is tacked on to the ass-end of a mini-mall, kind of like the unofficial "center of town," and it is a very busy spot. The cinema has a sign displaying what movies it currently has, on that big mini-mall obelisk that lets you know what's to be found in the surrounding 500 feet. The cinema uses those single letter signs you always catch making unintentional innuendos in pictures, and this is where my story comes to a point. I was picking up a pizza in this quarter-mile-long-monument-to-consumerism about 2 weeks ago, and, anxiously waiting at the intersection to get home and feast on my bread and cheese disc, glanced at the sign to see what movies were showing (or more accurately, dying). I saw the following spelled out in single letters of more-than-less unmatching font:

NO COUNY OLD MEN
ATONMET

There is no real explanation for the preceding display, but I will offer a few.
1. The people who work for Washington Township Cinema are so unfathomably inept, they honestly did not notice any problem with the appearance of their film lineup after they finished meticulously placing each individual letter.
2. The people who work for Washington Township Cinema only had a certain number of each letter to work with, and decided to use them where they could best convey the idea of the titles of the films to most people who saw the sign.
3. The people who work for Washington Township Cinema were texting their border-line retarded friends while putting up the letters, made mistakes, and simply couldn't have given a half a shit.

My personal opinion of what happened is a combination of 2 and 3, because as mindless as the people who work at Washington Township Cinema are, that is a little much to swallow. And I can swallow ALOT. So, what it comes down to is the fact that the people who work at this theater are not only dealing with shoddy, unsatisfactory equipment (i.e. no R's AT ALL), they just don't fucking care. To make matters worse, whoever owns or manages the theater doesn't even care. It's one thing for some dipshit 15 year old to be thinking about his skanky girlfriends acorn tits while he's working; it's quite another for a presumably grown-ass man or woman to let their business become and stay so destitute, in a mostly well-to-do area. It's pathetic, in the way that a homeless, dirty puppy is: you sort of feel bad, but you really just wish it would get it's shit together or go away.

Now, if you follow the film industry at all, you will have noticed that, in my story, the movies this cinematic purgatory was showing were Oscar nominated films, one of which happened to win Best Picture. And herein lies the catch inherent to the Washington Township Cinemas: the movies this bullshit place show are ALMOST always the ones you don't want to see. The other "non-almost" percent of the time, they play quality, sometimes hard-to-find films, usually way long time after they've been out of the big name theaters. So, if you hadn't seen "NO COUNY OLD MEN" when it was first released in a REAL theater, with seats that could soothe a rabid baboon and a screen the size of a rabid baboon's dick, you still have the chance to see it in a psuedo theater. One chance. THIS CHANCE. And this is where that self-loathing son of a crunch that owns the dump makes his/her money: in the "a veces" event that a movie comes out, which gets a lot of publicity, and of which they can get a reel months after the movie originally came out. "But Vinz," you might say, "they can't make enough money on those uncommon occurrences to fully support even a small business, can they?" They can, you little bitch, if they pay their employees literally a midget-shit above minimum wage all year round, which they do. This, in turn, leads to the abyss of service you receive when you actually do take a valium and step foot inside, a dearth which is that much more impressive when you realize how little service a movie theater actually requires. They just don't give a shit, and neither does the owner, because they know that when that Oscar buzz comes around, and they get that movie when NO ONE else is showing it, that they WILL sell tickets. And they do. And the place where movies go to die continues to exist on this plane.
Now, all this got me thinking about the way I view that most unfortunate of movie houses, which obviously could be filed next to the Hollister dressing rooms under "Places I'd Most Like To Dress Up Like A Terrorist Chimp And Throw Explosive Feces All Over." I actually HAVE seen a number of really great movies in that theater, and I know that if I really wanted to see a buzz-worthy movie in the theater after it's time in the real world was up, I might have the option to cross the river Styx and catch it here in my own town. In short, they sell something that, at one point or another, I will not be able to get ANYWHERE else. The whole situation reminded me of an idea I had when I worked at a grocery store for, oh, SIX YEARS, and I may have come to the realization that me and Mr./Ms. "I'd Hire Japanese Slave Children If I Could" have alot in common. I used to say, while working in the cash office and customer service desk of a well-to-do grocery store, that I would have done things differently. I would have started a grocery store where the employees didn't have to put up with the "This Ice Cream Was Too Hard" bullshit that plagued me in my high school years. My employees wouldn't have to bottle up all the aggression, sexual or not, during 8 hour shifts watching 52 year-old whores dressed like my slut teenage cousin rummaging through and destroying the entire milk selection to find out all the gallons have the same date. Whore. No, instead, they could let the old man in Aisle 5 know that his hair smells like goat cheese made from goat shit. They could tell the botox-injected middle aged mom to bring her own organic chicken to her own Mercedes M class, and stress that they hope she steps in a pothole and breaks both ankles. There would be NO customer service; my employees could act how they wanted to act, when they wanted to act like it, as long as no one got physically injured (and I might let that slide on "Physical Phrydays"). In return, I would pay my employees the lowest pay wage legally allowed. Why would people work for me? Because it would be the best job ever. Really. Having a bad day? Tell someone. Throw a "fuck" in there. Let it all out. Then when your ready, go stock shelves. Easy shit, and even fun. Why would people come to my store to shop, when they could get verbally accosted by any number of belligerent employees? Because these prices are LOW. MAD LOW. Lower than the lowest limbo bar in hell. Lower than Barry White's voice saying "Gooooood." Lower than Ashley Dupre at a Gubernatorial convention. SHIT you see how topical that was? Who asked you. I'm telling you, no man, woman, child, or even pumanther could resist ANYTHING this low. You won't find these prices ANYWHERE else. I'll be pulling more volume than an afro with mousse.

Have I worked out the fiscal math and discovered if the whole thing could actually work to make any sort of viable profit? No, shut the fuck up. Have I realized that it actually could work to make a viable profit by witnessing the continued existence of the Washington Township Cinemas? Yes, and seriously shut the fuck up.

I ain't no pumanther. Stay tuned.