Death To Carmike

You should know right up front that I do not wish violence against someone named Carmike. But I do wish a moderate amount of violence against a certain horrible movie theater.

It started last week when Big Daddy and I decided to go see Avatar in 3D. We had some free movie passes to a Carmike movie theater. They were a gift last year from some friends and they were going to expire this year on New year's Eve. So we had to use them, and soon. But we don't live anywhere near a Carmike theater. There is one in 20 minutes away in one direction. And there is one 30 minutes away in the other direction. There are at least 6 movie theaters closer, 3 of which you can get reserve seating for (the BEST INVENTION EVER), so we have no cause to ever go to a Carmike. But we didn't want to waste these tickets either, so we decided to head north and, since I had to get some lab work done at the hospital where I was going to have my procedure the following day, only a mile away from the theater, to kill two birds with one stone.

BIG MISTAKE.

First of all, the Carmike we chose refused to honor our gift passes. It didn't say anywhere on the tickets that there were restrictions on using them, but the girl said it would "screw up her computer" if she tried to use them for a 3D movie. Big Daddy offered to pay the difference between the regular movie and the 3D price, but she just wouldn't budge. So he ended up just giving his tickets to the person behind him and paying full price for the movie. AFTER WE'D DRIVEN HALF AN HOUR OUT OF OUR WAY TO ATTEND THIS THEATER.

Next, the candy supply at this theater was abysmal. They had tops, 8 candy choices. And among those were fruit snacks and raisins (not Raisinettes, ACTUAL raisins), so I'm pretty sure those don't even count. I'm not much of a candy eater. It's a rare day that I ever eat movie theater candy. But I was trying to make the most of my no-diet holiday. So on this day, they let me down. Big time.

Problem #3, the theater had NO HEAT. I'm not joking. It was nearly as cold in the theater as outside. I hadn't brought gloves, and I was sorry. My hands were like ice and I had to wrap them up in my scarf to keep them warm. My nose, the only area outside my hood (yes, I was wearing a hood IN the theater) and exposed to the air, got redder and colder throughout the movie. By the end, my teeth were actually chattering. My husband, the human heater, was even freezing, despite his new stay-puffed coat. And as we looked around in the theater, everyone was huddled close together with their coats heaped on top of them like blankets.

And then as we were leaving the theater, we overheard a man talking to the manager and ticket girl about the fact that she wouldn't honor his movie passes. And so they let him use them!

At that point, we decide to let the manager know how awful our experience had been. And when I told him there had been no heat in our theater, he asked which movie we'd attended. "Avatar 3D," I said. "3D?" he asked, "Not the regular one??" Rough translation: Oh. I knew the heat wasn't working in the regular theater, but not the 3D one too.

What a piece-of-crap theater. You can be sure I will never, ever go there again. Not even for free tickets. And should they find a few boxes of nasty Snow Caps stuffed with C4 in their concession stand, I don't know anything about them.

(And despite all that, Avatar was still absofreakinglutely AMAZING. See it. See it NOW. And be sure to go to the 3D. It's unbelievable.)