R A T I O N A L I R R A T I O N A L I T I E S.

Now dont get me wrong I am a patient person with pretty much most things. However, as we all do, I have a few pet peeves that really do get to me. One of those being loud eaters. When sat minding my own business, having my attention drawn to the breaking down of food in someone elses mouth is literally the one thing that turns me into a completely irrational person. It actually brings about such a physical desire for violence within me that I usually have to remove myself from the situation, put headphones in with music on loud, leave the room, smack the food from the persons mouth and scream at them to never eat in my presence again, just general things to stop the rage that will inevitably come.

Now picture this happening to me in a scenario where I am literally unable to remove myself from the situation (ie, in a cinema which I paid £14 for to watch a film I've been wanting to see since its release). So I'm sat there with my friend, excited for the film to start, and this young girl and her obviously deaf guardian sit next to me. All is well, the momentum is building as we enjoy the trailers and general chit chat is occuring before the lights go down. Then, almost in perfect synchrony, the child pulls out a collosal bag of popcorn at the exact moment the film begins. Now I know this isn't a rare occurrence in a cinema, and I'm well aware of that. Popcorn is crunchy. I get it. But my god. The first half of the film was completely f*cking lost on me as this thing sat next to me eating like a freaking baby dinosaur that hasn't been fed in days. At times I thought, maybe her stomach wasn't a bottomless pit as she took a minutes break to lick the residue off her fingers, and not in the dainty way people who arent germaphobes lick their fingers. Oh no, instead the dinosaur decided to fit her entire bloody fist in her mouth and suck it dry, (a talent that I'm sure will be appreciated later on in life), before continuing with the rest of the box. Now this film was by no means a silent film, nor a softly spoken romance, it was the Hunger Games – Mockingjay Part 2. Practically 80% of the film was war scenes; explosions, gun shots, screams of sadness as the writer ripped your heart strings completely out. And still the munching, the crunching, the inhalation of f*cking popcorn was audible, above all that, in my right ear.

You'd think, surely it doesnt take that long to eat a box of popcorn. And I'll give it to her, by half way through (about an hour and a half in) she had finished, and proceeded to cover her fist in saliva again, before putting the box on the floor. Thank God, I thought. But oh, if only it were the end. Reaching into her bag she pulled out some form of home prepared snack that she prompty got to work on. Snacks upon snacks just kept coming, and the anger I had been trying to supress just simmered beneath my skin, as I reminded myself of all the socially unacceptable behaviour fully grown adults are expected to recognise. Is she eating a f*cking bowling ball.

It got to the point where passive aggression took over. I began audibly sighing and 'accidentally' knocking her arm when I went to put mine on the arm rest, or kicking her as I crossed my legs, anything to bring her awareness to her own complete lack of regard for anyone else trying to pay attention to the film. My friend, who knows my irrational response to this one thing, actually took hold of my hands to save me from my own self. I genuinely considered politely leaning across to her deaf guardian and quietly saying. 'In future, when you bring your young dinosaur thing to the cinema, feed it beforehand, so us mere humans aren't subjected to its bad habits. Thanks.' And stare at them till they left with a face like:

As you can tell, I very adultly took my anger out in the only creative avenue I have. Ignoring the fact I probably screamed in the faces of several innocent civilians as I explained the experience to my Mother down the phone on the walk home. Though she was practically non-responsive from laughing too much at visions of me throwing a kid down in the middle of the cinema.

Anyway, everyone has their little pet peeves, I just wouldn't wish being sat next to one of them for three hours straight upon anyone.

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