So we went to the movie the other night...

One of the suck parts of loving animated movies is that seeing them in the theater is always trying. Well, Monday night was even worse than usual. We expect some noise and misbehavior, because that's just kids now, but there was a woman at the end of our row who had a bunch of little kids with her (either her kids or grandkids, we're not sure). The smallest was a toddler. WAY too young to be at the theater. He had light up shoes, and one of the kids had a phone out the entire time, so the light was a distraction. But they made noise the entire time. The toddler was giggling, loudly, and would leave their seats and run all the way across the theater to the exit. The moo/grandmoo would scold him and retrieve him, telling him to stay in his seat-- at full volume. No whispers, apparently no embarrassment. She told him they were bothering other people. No kidding. But the worst part is every time she and the kid passed, we could smell them. Kid's diaper? Moo's? We aren't sure, but Mr. kittehpeoples called them "the shit-scented daycare." (Not to their faces-- he's much nicer than I that.)

When they left, they took all of their popcorn buckets and soda cups with them, but the floor looked like they'd dumped all the popcorn on the carpet and stomped it in. The guy came in to clean up, got to their seats, and just stood there bewildered for a moment like he was trying to figure out how they'd made that huge of a mess (it was a good 2-3' wide). Poor dude. Then I guess he resigned himself because he started sweeping popcorn out of their seats.

I understand what you mean about liking animated movies. I like some of them, but the civility of the audience is hit and miss. The spouse and I wait until after the hype has died down (never during opening week, especially Saturday and Sunday!), and then we hit weekday night showings. There's a regional movie theater chain that does have skybox seating that's 21+. We snap up those immediately.

Kids really shouldn't be seeing movies in theaters until they're around school age. They don't have the attention span for it before that. Let them stay home and watch it on DVD.