Last night I set out to see Inception for a second time because it truly is marvelous.  It was a pretty busy night, and guess what happened at the cinema.

As myself and my crew of two companions entered we saw that someone else was already sitting in our allocated seats, but who cares, we aren’t children.  So we took the next three available seats.  At this stage the cinema was barely half full so it wasn’t a huge problem.  The lights went down and the coming attractions began to roll.  At this time I will point out that the three of us had an entire row to ourselves with no one beside us.

As the trailers were showing, a foreign man (possibly French) and his female partner were walking up the aisle.  They were looking at their tickets, then looking at our row of seats.  Already in my mind the events of my Iron Man 2 Review were flashing through my mind.  I felt like I was staring into the headlights of oncoming traffic as the French man and his female companion compared the numbers on their tickets to each seat down my row until they stopped and looked at me.  The events of my Iron Man 2 review fresh in my mind I chose my words carefully when the French man looked at me and asked, in broken English, “Are these your seats? My ticket says this is my seat. Why are you sitting in this seat? This isn’t your seat!”  I looked embarrassed enough for both of us and told him not to worry about it, the rest of the row is free, just pick a seat.  But he insisted, “No, this is my seat,” He declared, “I don’t want to risk having someone else in my seat in case I get asked to move.” At which point I reminded him, there is no chance of someone else sitting in his seat, because I was already sitting in his seat.  I don’t think he took my attempt at humor well, so before I moved two seats down I asked him, “You are asking me to move because of the seat number on your ticket, but that’s not what this is REALLY about is it?”  Then I moved two seats down and they got to sit in their allocated seats, right next to me.

That is until ten minutes later, just as the movie was starting, three portly fellows entered, and although they had their choice of sitting practically ANYWHERE else in the cinema, they insisted on sitting in the seats we were already using.  I pointed out to him, the movie is starting, lets not make a big thing of this.  But he looked like he was going to cry, after all, he was very fat and had just climbed about five stairs to get to the seat allocated on his ticket to find me keeping his seat warm.

There was a small scuffle of words, I think I won when it occurred to me that I have already seen this movie, and this fat fuck hasn’t.  So as I got up with my friends to move down two rows (where there were approx ten seats free) I whispered into the fat mans ear, the ending to the movie, and then dropped a stealth fart on his popcorn.

The story.

One of our salesmen sold a 16GB memory card to a customer and after getting caught up in what was surely a very in depth personal conversation with the woman, he then forgot to take the memory card out of the casing after completing the transaction.

She arrived home to find her memory card trapped in this plastic fortress that couldn’t be opened with any conventional methods. First she tried to cut the top of it with scissors. But the case was still locked.

Then she tried to pry it open with a screw driver. But the plastic is designed so the case just bends without opening the case.

Although the woman wouldn’t admit to it, I’m almost certain that there were burn marks on the case. She told us that after forty-five minutes she had finally broken into the case. Surprisingly it didn’t occur to her that the case was not suppose to be opened that way. It never occurred to her that we were suppose to unlock it in store for her. She never thought after, scissors, screw drivers and fire, that something was wrong.

But I hear you asking, If she got the thing open in the end, how did you hear about this?

Turns out, after her huge ordeal, it was the wrong type of memory card for her camera.

At this point in the conversation I asked her how much range she wanted. How far away is the computer going to be from the router?

“Oh not far at all, only a metre.”

I had her go through her entire computer setup to make sure I understood it all. I made the mistake of assuming she wanted to move her computer far away from her modem, where it wouldn’t reach. I was wrong. So I asked her, since her computer is right next to the modem, why doesn’t she just plug it directly in.

“Because every time I unplug the ethernet cord, my internet drops out.”

I gave her the free advice of not unplugging her ethernet cord. She left with her money and some sound advice.

“THIS CAMERA COSTS $1500!?!”

I was immediately confused and still in shock that my ears had just taken an auditory raping. While I gathered my composure the husband turned to his wife and said,

“No, thats the model number 1500.”

Then the wife plucked the courage to challenge that explanation.

“Well then WHY does it have a dollar sign next to it?” She asked.

I was still rubbing my eyes trying to ignore this whole scene, and the man replied.

“Thats not a dollar sign, thats an S. The letter ‘S’. It’s an S1500.”

Then they both left the store, presumably so his wife could return to the safety of her kitchen.

A woman called me. After talking for a while I figured out she just had to reinstall windows on her computer.

“Bud I dun know much about kompewterz hay!” She said, in her own vernacular.

“Oh it’s easy with your computer. Just switch it off. Then hold Zero and turn it back on while you are holding the zero button.” These were my simple instructions.

“Ok, I will try it…..” These where her final words as the line then went dead.

Presumably she turned off her phone by mistake, instead of her laptop.

The man looked at me, he stared at me but I got the impression he was staring straight through me, although our eyes met, I just felt like maybe like his eyes were having trouble not focussing on the blank wall behind me.

“Does your computer have a password?”

There was another moment of silence and then he responded,

“What do you mean?”

So I gave him the only response I could muster,

“Which of those words in my sentence did you not under stand? Was it the nouns or the words connecting them, or was it the silent part between each of the words? There is no simpler way of asking this question. When you use your computer, does it require you to enter a secret password before you may use it?”

I think he understood me, although for a while there I felt like I was speaking Mandarin to the white man. He told me he didn’t use the computer but he would ask someone if there was a password. He walked off and a few minutes later came back with his son. I decided to call him, Son of Stupid. Surely this boy has an Aunty, and maybe even a mother, but no doubt they are the same person.

I asked him, “Does your computer have a password?”

He replied.

“Ummmmm. What do you mean?”

I let them leave before they ran out of grey matter to rub together between their ears to form intelligent thought. After that I booted up the computer. Guess what! It asked me for a password.

A woman came to me today with a broken Nintendo DS. Her touch screen wasn’t working. I had a look at it, and it definitely wasn’t working. The console is two months old so I told her I would send it to Nintendo for her. She was very upset. Within the first fourteen days we can swap a Nintendo DS for a new one, after that it needs to be sent for repair. It’s just the way things are. She didn’t like this and said she would go the the Office of Fair Trading. I told her that was a great idea and handed her back her Nintendo DS.

“Why are you giving me this back?” She asked.

I explained that, if she wants to make noise, and talk to the Fair Trade and argue about Nintendos Policy and our Policy then it would be silly for me to help her. So I told her to take her DS and leave. After another argument I agreed to send her DS away and she said she would make some calls to big people in high places on Monday morning.

Her biggest problem was that she was going to be without her DS for at least two weeks. Big deal. I’m sure people have survived longer without bread and water. Fate would leave her without a video game for at least the next two weeks, which left her with nothing to do, its not as though she could just as easily

-read a book
-see a play
-see a movie
-visit a friend
-have a picnic
-exercise
-make a delicious meal
-watch some television
-go for a day trip to somewhere nice
-do drugs
-don’t do drugs
-volunteer at a local RSPCA
-clean a roadside
-plant a tree
-raise money for charity
-write a novel
-punch a business executive in the face
-audition for Idol
-have a nap
-join a book club
-knit a sweater
-make a baby
-have a coffee
-find a penpal
-start a fight club
-watch Fight Club (The Movie)
-learn another language
-change the batteries in smoke alarm
-change batteries in remote
-make a bucket list
-kidnap an immigrant
-get food poisoning
-get a job
-get a life
-write a poem
-write a haiku
-poison herself
-inject the antidote
-make a wish upon a star
-drive interstate for dinner at a fast food chain
-help a stranger
-donate blood
-donate hair
-check her eyesight
-check oil in car
-weed the garden
-adopt a starving child
-draw a circle
-put on makeup
-clean the gutters
-tell war stories to troubled youth
-consolidate your debt
-diversify her bonds
-update her resume

Im sure any one of those items would distract her long enough that before she knew it her Nintendo DS were fixed and ready to be played with again. But that is beside the point. I am having trouble deciding what to do now. You see, after she left I had a closer look at her DS. It had a screen protector on the touch screen. When I pulled off the screen protector the touch screen started to work again. There was actually nothing wrong with the DS, it was just a screen protector causing problems with the sensitivity. So now I need to decide whether to call the customer and tell her, or wait until the Office of Fair Trade calls me in the morning, and I can tell them.

My reply.

“No it’s not locked, and heres why. That actually an MP3 player.”

Customer holds his tail between his legs.

“Oh, I see.”

So this week my employer decided to walk out. Not just quit. Not just resign, he walked out, never to return. Without a leader the mood at my workplace became very grim and it was only a matter of time before I turned wild.

It was day two. Low on nourishment and in need of a cheap thrill I decided to utilise my fear tactics I had learned in sales training to try and sell some things. The following is not the right way to sell Anti-Virus.

Customer purchased a computer from me, and asked what antivirus program I recommend. She likes AVG. My reaction is as follows;

“AVG! Are you trying to kill us all!???”

She seemed shocked, so I explained to her the importance of good antivirus software.

“In 1984 an attempt was made on a poor girls life! All because of poor internet security protection! Twenty-six years ago, this was before the internet existed for us consumers, Sarah Connors life was put in jeopardy because some asshole at Skynet put AVG on the Department of Defence computer network. A virus got into the network, and before long, it became self aware. Presumably Chuck Norris round house kicked the virus to the face and it was given the power of conscious thought.”

The customer stood back, mouth agape. I continued

“Soon machines rised from the ground and used up all our power outlets to charge their batteries. There wasn’t enough electricity left to plug in our TV’s to watch Gilmore Girls, or the Season finale of Lost, and the military decided enough was enough and began to take action…. but it was already too late.”

While I was talking, the customer left the store, but I’m pretty sure there was a stoner two aisles down who heard me, and probably thought to himself a wise decision to go and buy a copy of Terminator 2. And thus continues the paradoxical cycle of The Terminator Franchise which may have never existed if the Department of Defense had just used a decent antivirus program.

On one of my most recent trips to the mens facilities I was stopped by a customer who asked me if I was busy, instinctively I said yes, but offered to help her anyway on the condition that she hurry along. She told me she needed a battery for her camera.

“What sort of battery does your camera take?”

She didn’t know. She didn’t know what brand or model camera she had, or where she got it.

“Is it a lithium battery or just a standard AA battery?”

The word she used to describe her battery was, Squoonshie.

It’s a squoonshie little thing….

It’s just a little squoonshie battery….

You know? The Squoonshie ones…

“I’m not sure thats helping.” I explained. So I took her to the aisle where all the camera batteries are kept since she assured me she would know it if she saw it.

“It’s a little square one”, she said, “about yay big.”
She showed me with her fingers how big it was.

At this point I left her staring blankly at the wall while I went to the bathroom, it was then I realized…

…I’m pretty sure she wants a memory card.

He came back in today. This time there were two things wrong with his computer. The first problem he told me, he had spyware and it caused a lot of popups on his computer, or as he put it,

“A fuck load of windows come up ‘n’ shit!”

Then his wife entered the scene. And she told me there was something else going wrong with the computer. The DVD drive was making a lot of noise. Or as she put it,

“I put a disc in and it made a fuckin’ unreal noise ‘n’ stuff!”

I had a quick look at the DVD drive while they were still there and came to the conclusion that the drive was making excessive noise because the disc wasn’t balanced properly and sometimes this happens. When I tried to explain this too them, they didn’t understand. So I put it in terms they might understand. I turned to the bogan man and said,

“It’s like when your washing machine has an off balanced load, it starts to shake a lot but it eventually sorts itself out.”

He didn’t understand, so I turned to the woman to see if she understood my explanation. Then I realised…

…they are bogans and probably don’t own a working washing machine.

As I sat in the food court drinking a Coca-Cola, I tried to build up the courage inside me to sit in a chair long enough for someone to style my hair. To procrastinate I decided to see what was playing at the cinemas, and to my surprise, I hadn’t realised that Iron Man 2 came out today.

“One adult, to Iron Man please.” Id received oral sex cheaper than it cost to see a movie, but without hesitation I handed the girl an undisclosed amount of money in exchange for a movie ticket, and no oral sex.

For those of you who haven’t been to the cinemas in a while, let me update you on how things work now. Your seat is allocated to you. The price of movie tickets has doubled since I was a boy and now the luxury of grazing through the cinema aisles trying to find the perfect viewing position with minimum sticky substance on your seat, that privilege has been forfeit. Where are our box office dollars going? Still though, in an act of defiance, most people will still sit wherever they please, except in the instance of a full house, where as a courtesy, if two people wish to sit together, and you are taking up their seats, it’s only common courtesy to shift down.

Since I’d just had a Coca-Cola, I skipped the confection area and proceeded into the cinema without any sweets. I’m an adult, and I can do that. My allocated seat according to my ticket was L-10, but as it was a friday, and my buttocks were about to spend more time in the seat than my head, I trusted their instinct and sat down in Row J. Conflict soon began to set in as there was another man soon to enter the cinema who wanted my seat as much as I did, and as the luck of the draw would have it, his ticket had earned him that right. But does a seat number on a movie ticket take precedence over common sense, decency and moral values? We would soon find out.

I take pride in the fact that I don’t become attached to material possessions, and particularly so in the case of a seat in a theatre, since I will eventually have to leave after the film. But still, when this stranger asked me to move, because I was sitting in his seat, I asked him, “Why? They are all the same.” At this point, the movie was roughly six minutes away from starting, and there were about eight people in the cinema.

He calmly replied that the seat was rightfully his and flashed me his ticket, while his female companion tried to pull him away from an argument by pointing out the other one hundred and fifty other vacant seats. I’m not a very aggressive person so without making a scene, I offered him my seat and apologized for any inconvenience.

I’m not a very aggressive person, I am however, a vindictive cunt.

My new mortal enemy was sat in J-10, his female companion, J-11. I had taken up camp, in J-9, and sought to befriend my newfound neighbour. Queue the coming attractions.

The first commercial came on, and it was one of those commercials that advertises the company that puts commercials on at the cinema. Curious, I thought. So I turned to my new neighbour.

“Hey, do you think its strange that an advertisement company is advertising advertisements? Isn’t there a word for that? I think it’s called a synecdoche, have you ever heard that word before? Do you know what it means. It’s like when you use a word to to describe something bigger I think. I think thats what this is. Would that be the same as an advertisement for an advertisement company?”

“Shut up.”

The next commercial began to start. See Australia, it said. Come and visit beautiful Australia, well how could I resist turning to my new neighbour, and with a light elbow jab to his side,

“Hey, do you think its strange that we are watching an ad, telling us to see Australia? We are already fuckin’ here! Isn’t that really lame?”

“Look mate, why don’t you find another seat?”

“I can think of a few reasons.” I replied, to my new favorite neighbour.

Then he looked at me the way an obese person looks at a vege burger. I could feel his anger burning into the side of me. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then his soul had fire, and pupils in it, bound together with evil, anger and a hatred towards witty observations. This man was not putting off a good vibe, I was sensing a lot of negative energy, so I backed down, and moved seats.

Just as the next advertisement began to start I had successfully moved base to my new location on seat J-12. Right next to my previous neighbours female partner. The commercial this time was the story of two old codgers, who have made cheese for generation after generation. Everyone in their family had worked on the farm, making cheese.

As I turned to my left, I chose to ignore the already enraged man, two seats down, and focussed all my energy on the woman.

“Howdy Neighbour, so these old-timers have been making cheese on their three hundred and sixty five acre farm all their life. They only work with their family and never go anywhere else. Sounds like a bunch of serial killers to me. Am I right? And why would they think that old people would make good spokespersons for cheese? Have you ever noticed that old people sometimes smell like cheese? I don’t want to be thinking about that when I eat cheese. If cheese gets better with age, maybe thats why old people smell like cheese. Am I right?”

The two of them got out of their seats, and without a word, left the cinema. I didn’t expect a parade, or even a medal. I got back what I had earned. My seat, in J-10….

…at least that was until the two returned with a cinema employee who asked me to leave. I didn’t actually get to see the movie. But I heard it’s pretty good.

Vending machine. I gave you everything…. and you show me no love. I just want my happiness in a cold can. Like The Beatles sang about.

I will be writing a harshly worded letter to the Vending Machine Vendor. I DEMAND my tasty beverage. And also, I paid $1.40 for a slice of that delicious mould you have cultivating on the bottom shelf, yet the machine wouldn’t dispense. It seems to be attached to the spiral dispensing deal. Should I have brought my own prying stick from home?

He’d was quite clearly tired from the epic journey, presumably he’d travelled all the way from birth and was on his way to death. He was very old and clearly retarded. As he hobbled up to my bench he explained,

“My printer will not print. It gives me an error message.”

Ok, I don’t see why you brought your entire house and land package with you, all I need is the printer. So I fetch it from the deepest reaches of his trolley cart. Attach the power cable firmly into one end of the printer, and the other end inserts into the wall. Magic happens in a scene rivalling Moses when he parted the ocean, as the printer springs to life and I am presented with this screen….

Have you installed your cartridges sir? They appear to be empty.

“I replaced them not long ago.”

How long ago?

“About four months ago.”

I see. Let me get you some new cartridges then. They are Twenty dollars each.

“But the man on the phone said I needed to bring my whole computer down.”

Yes, thats because I’m an asshole.

“But it still has the plastic protector dealy on the screen!” She proclaimed.

To which I replied,

“If these plastic protector covers could stop a computer from failing I’m pretty sure EVERYTHING would be covered in them.”