All three, very irritating

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In another thread recently I made a list of things that cause altercations in public and coincidentally the first item on that list was:

"...1) A patron at a cinema wouldn't stop talking/ answered their mobile phone/ ate their popcorn noisily..."

Well I was at the cinema tonight and I got all three! Just my luck. A woman a few seats across from me was eating her popcorn like it was the last popcorn she was ever going to have. You know, in that irritating "let's see if the popcorn in the bottom of the box tastes different from the popcorn on top" manner: scrabble scrabble rummage rummage, then highly specialized sound effects similar to a million dry twigs being crushed in a burlap sack.
Thankfully the popcorn sound had a time limit, dictated by the woman's (mercifully) large appetite. It was soon finished.

But then there was the young couple who had been out for a few drinks and decided to 'chill' at the cinema. He was quiet, but she was one of those people who wnats to know in advance why a certain character has just done something, and what do we all suppose is going to happen next. So there would be the constant mumbling in the background '...why did he shoot them?' and '...where is he going now?' sort of thing. Thankfully that also became background noise and I could ignore that after the first half hour.

But the worst was saved for the final action sequence in which the hero was making his final bid for freedom. A bloody phone went off somewhere in front, followed by hyena-like giggling. I could see the lights on the phone as it was passed from one teenager to the next so they could hear how cool the ringtone was. Then it stopped. A minute later, back on, followed by more giggling, then a conversation on the phone. Of course, polite 'Shhhhhs' from the other patrons were ignored. The phone then rang a third time. Fortunately a guy in front of me shouted out '..turn it off, prick...' and that was the end of the phone. But it spoiled the film, you know.

I think they should punish people like that by surgically implanting a tiny speaker in their inner ear that blares out their own ringtone at random intervals for a period of 5 years. Maybe we could mix in the Wind*ws start jingle for good measure.

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@ Roj:

I must say these things are really irritating. By the way, I like the 'translator,' that has to be at least equal to the phone ringing in terms of annoyance.

I remember when a friend and I went to see Passenger 57. We went during the week, in the morning so we wouldn't have all the schoolkids there making a noise. Well we had the cinema to ourselves and everything was just great, when about a quarter of the way through three kids who were 'bunking' school, in uniform came in. They were quiet at first but then one of the kids finished his Coke (in a bottle) and the other two kids wanted the empty bottle (what for, I do not know.)
The bottle ended up rolling down the stairs and there was a furious scramble with much knocking of seatbacks and heated cursing as these kids crawled and wrestled under the seats, trying to get the bottle.
This went on for at least two minutes before we lost it and gave them what-for.
To make matters worse, we found out afterwards that they didn't have tickets and they were 12 to 13, in a no under 16 cinema.
 

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@ Hyperspeed:

You're spot-on about the big hooped earrings: these girls had hoops that could be used as a macaw perch

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@ Cyberus

You're absolutely right about the discipline. I would never have even thought of pulling some of the stunts that the teenagers today pull.

A guy at work summed it up nicely: "...when I was young, if a kid was brought home by the local bobby for causing a disturbance, the kid might already have had his ear pulled by the bobby, but he would still get another one from his father...but these days the bobby's hands are tied and if he escorts a kid home, he is greeted by a scornful, aggressive parent who sees the policeman as the problem, not their child's behaviour..."

And the ankle-biters are getting cheeky a lot earlier too.
I cringe every time I see programs like 'Super Nanny' and 'Little Angels' where a four or five year old is terrorising the family and the mother smiles benevolently and says little Jimmy can be a handful at times. They go into all this psychoanalysis of the kid, trying to find out what other 'ailment' they can label it (other than plain old naughtiness of course) and then come up with these ridiculous techniques of making him sit in a corner for X seconds, or taking one toy away. This 'treatment' can last weeks.
With me it was simple. Like all kids of that age, I was not treated as an adult, and I couldn't be reasoned with like an adult, and it was a simple smack that restored order when I got too naughty and refused to listen (as all kids do from time to time).

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...and how many arguments did "...Blur is better than Oasis..." cause?  

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@ AccyD:
I agree, but I thought we were in the minority