Today I woke up far too early than the natural man was intended to rise. It was about 9am. The only plan I’d had for the day was to get a haircut, but lately my insecurities about myself have left me not wanting anyone to cut my hair. Today marked the second occasion this month that I have left the house to get a haircut, only to get within metres of the barber, and then turn around and walk away.

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.