It was Friday night at the end of a long month and a longer week. I had been sick for the past three days and I needed, really needed, to go out and have some fun. Even though the simple act of looking for something to wear was exhausting, I was determined. Out we went.Dinner wasn’t so bad, except the Chinese buffet had raised their prices again, and my dinner of several bowls of soup… all I could really manage to eat; ended up being fairly pricey. I was struck by how unfair it seemed that I was charged the same amount as the rather large couple sitting behind us that were gorging themselves on crab legs from the time we walked in. I paid the bill, they continued to eat, and I decided not to return. Going to see a movie on a Friday night is a bad idea at the best of times.This was most assuredly not the best of times. The 10 and 11 showings of Matrix were sold out. The 10:30 had seats left. If I had not been in a TavistD induced haze perhaps my better judgment would have taken over and I would have returned to where we had just parked and run screaming into the night, but I didn’t. I actually felt happy that I had managed to snag some of thel ast few tickets that were left.We rushed inside, in hopes of getting a decent seat. Of course it was the last theater on the right hand concourse of a super-mongo-mega-plex-theaterama. As we rounded the corner we realized just what a mistake we had made. I swore that ‘Star Wars’ would be at least 2 months old before I would go to see it. There was quite literally a horde of people in front of us. It was hot, I was having trouble breathing anyway; and matters were only made worse by the assholes that just decided it was their god given right to just push through everyone to get to the front. Had I been feeling better, I would have said something, but I could barely manage to mutter the obscenities within hearing of my companion, let alone vocalize them over the impatient din. I sent the boi to a nearby concession stand for something to drink.

Of course, the crowd then moved. I was being swept toward the open doors. The couple in front of me was making jokes about people being trampled, and some moron thought it was funny to make loud siren noises right in my ear, I managed a “shut the fuck up, goddamn idiot” before I gave up the cause as lost. I just gritted my teeth and moved on. I got in and claimed two seats in the third row. Blessedly I had the isle seat, and guarded the one to the right with my life, and my feet. If they wanted the seat that bad then they could spend the movie with a platformed boot up their ass.

Once the boi got back things did not get much better. It soon became readily apparent, even to my stuffed nose that many of my fellow patrons did not share my feelings about hygiene and bathing. It also seemed quite fashionable to bring all 3,4, or even 5 of your children to the late showing of a rather lengthy weekend movie and let them run around the theater. Once the movie got underway the aural miasma continued. Across the isle from me a man made no less than 3 cell phone calls. Not incoming, mind you, he actually called other people while obviously not watching the movie. Another brilliant patron used a laser pointer to draw lovely designs on the screen intermittently as children romped down the isles. It was quaint, I assureyou.

Now I can understand a bit of noise during action sequences, but these people yelled out comments and talked to each other loudly during the whole damn movie. During the big rescue scene I could hardly hear the soundtrack over the shouting! "Damn, girl" must have been yelled no less that 20 times. At several points I tried in vein to ask for a bit of quite from the unfriendly crowd, all I got back were insults. As if I was somehow infringing on their right to actlike rabid assholes, which obviously took precedence over my right to enjoy afilm in peace. I was furious. The ushers that were still in the theater did nothing, absolutely nothing, to stop this; making it all the worse.

Despite the ill-mannered rabble I still managed to enjoy the movie; no small feat, Iassure you. I basked in the irony of the agent’s ‘virus speech’ which seemedto vindicate my growing bitter hatred of those around me. We must take what small bits of comfort we can.

On the way home my beloved and I talked about the movie. We talked about how surprised we were at its popularity. Sure, there are a few action sequences, and there is much eye candy, but it seemed to long and far too subtle and complex for the*ahem* unwashed masses. My companion commented that sometimes he thought it was pointless to try and do anything of quality anymore; that art and music were lost on society at large, and the whole Roger Waters 'blind sucking ofthe teat' argument. I pointed out, that’s what goths are for; to appreciate things when the rest of the world has gone mad, blind, or stupid.We also marveled at the ignorance, boldfaced lack of manners, and frightening absence of common courtesy of the moviegoers. How is it 20% of the audiencecan get away with ruining the experience for everyone else? Moreover, how can so many people be running around behaving like that, and get away with it? I boggles the mind, honestly, what is the world coming to?

This is the point where conversation started getting really ugly. We discussed the possibility that intelligence seems to be being negatively selected for with the human race. It seems like the intelligent, well-educated people aren’t having children, but the least-educated, least-intelligent segments of the population are having huge families… and dragging them out to annoy everyone else. When '12 Monkeys' came out, I wasn’t so sure that most of the earth’s population being wiped out was necessarily such a bad thing. It just seems that something is going to have to break at some point. I’m not so arrogant that I believe that I will necessarily be in the surviving 10%; I’m not even sure that I would want to be one of the last. I’m starting to believe that the only hope the human race has of not completely destroying its self may be to be nearly destroyed.

I don’t like thinking this way, but it keeps coming back around to the same thing. I know all this is very gloom and doom; but when I think about the way society encourages ignorance and thrives off stupidity I get very frustrated.We have tampered with the natural order of things, weak members that would have once died and freed up resources for the strong are now given even more resources so that they may sustain some semblance of life whether it contributes to the good of the species or not. Human beings have done everything in their power to side step, if not flat out cheat, the forces of nature and natural selection. It’s going to bite us in the ass one way oranother… but what can we do now to ‘fix’ it? Should we even try?

The heat of the discussion proved to be enough distraction that driving skills faltered. We didn’t quite stop at a flashing red light and were pulled over by two cops. At the time we had no idea what we had done. Traffic cops tend to annoy me. I always think that instead of ticketing us for not coming to a complete stop on an otherwise completely empty road they would do better to be out stopping a rape or hunting down child molesters. The funny thing was, the cop on the passenger side looked like a diminutive Henry Rollins.Of course we were stopped just a mile from our house. It was late when we got home. I was knackered, still sick, but so angry I couldn’t sleep. Most people that know me well joke about how I am always pissed off about something, and believe me, it’s exhausting to be angry all the time… but that is another rant.