Now I’m not saying that I hate small children, nor am I saying that they are completely useless, but I really, really, really, really don’t like small children. They’re loud, whiny little brats whose filter between their brains and mouths haven’t fully developed yet, and so, naturally, there tends to be an abundance of them where I live.
    

Especially at movie theaters.
   

It had been quite a while since my Aunt and I had spent time together just one on one (nearly nine months), and so we decided to go catch a flick at the theater so that we could just chill out for a minute or two and just enjoy being in each other’s presence while simultaneously being entertained. She paid for the tickets and the popcorn, and I shelled out a couple (read: five dollars and fifty cents) bucks for a large Mountain Dew that both of us knew that we couldn’t complete, even by sharing it. Surrounded by the distinct scent of butter, salt, and high cholesterol, we stumbled into theater number eight and squinted to find a seat in the darkness.
    

There. You wouldn’t catch it until it was too late.
     

An entire row in the middle of the theater was taken, not by people, but by large white signs that blared through the dim lighting, reading “Hey! Don’t sit here because this is someone else’s seat! Because they’re pretentious and couldn’t take up the back row!” Well…not necessarily in that wording, but I digress.
    

As it turns out, someone had called ahead to “reserve” an entire row of seats for their little circus of midgets that didn’t know how to keep their mouths shut. And I, being the idiot that I was, decided “hey! Let’s sit in the row directly behind these little trolls!”
    

Not even ten minutes after sitting my large derriere in the plush seat did the conga line of disgust come trampling through the door, with their high-pitched whines and their snot-nosed faces. If I could liken children to one thing, it would be a ball of disease and germs and complaints that you can’t get rid of without being sent to prison. And I admit, perhaps it was my own fault for choosing to see “The Peanuts Movie” after six o’clock on a Saturday night. But there’s a not-so-fine line between being considerate, and constantly yelling at these little brats that won’t shut their mouths no matter how many times you tell them to. Oh my God just please separate these girls and be the hero we all wished we could be because it’s obvious they won’t shut up oh please oh please oh please…
     

Again, I digress.
    

The room dims, and the previews begin slowly but surely, like a train ride. And still, even with the loud booming sounds surrounding us, this one little germ-factory sitting directly in front of me decided that what she had to say was more important than the movie I didn’t pay good money to go see. Looking back on it now, I wish I had the courage to ask this woman who may or may not have been this child’s mother to take her out of the theater and spank her like my mother did to me when I was around this child’s age. Perhaps it was just my own upbringing making its way to the surface, but either way I wanted this girl to just please stop talking.
    

Thankfully, after quite a few sharp kicks to the back of her seat by a strong, mysterious force that may or may not have been my own flip-flopped foot, she took the hint by the end of the previews and her mouth shut throughout the duration of the movie. The only thought revolving through my mind after that was “huh, perhaps I should do that more often at the movie theater, if it’s that effective.”
    

Moral of the story: If it’s a children’s movie, and you’re prepared to go see it on a Saturday night, you should do three things. Sit back, relax, and then swiftly flip through your channels to find something better that would occupy your time. Or, you know, just reschedule your plans and go for a time after the movie has been out for longer than a day, but what’s the fun in that?