 I've talked about movie theaters in the past and what a complete shit show they've become and that's mainly because of the audience, but the movie theaters themselves, the management seems hell bent on making sure you no longer want to go there to watch a film. On this week's Bitch Fest, I'm really going to laser in on one specific thing I have a problem with and that's the pot machines, the soda machines at these establishments. I don't know how relatable this is going to be for different states, different countries potentially. I don't know what the setup is there. I can only speak from my Minnesota experiences and what we have to work with. Back in the days, which of course is slang for back in the day, you used to go to a movie theater, pop down your $7 for a ticket, go to the counter, purchase a Coca-Cola classic, which they would fill from the fountain machine right on the spot. If it's Pepsi, you can just forget about that and go to hell. It's borderline rape on your mouth. Things have changed over the years and that's due to technology and the willful ignorance of the human condition. Now when you go to a movie theater, there may not be a person there. You might put your card into a machine and get a ticket. There's no greeter, no anything, pretty much just robots, which is okay. I don't like people that much. Then you head to the counter where you do have to interact with one of these sweat bags and you say, I'd like a Coca-Cola classic or other. This isn't an ad for Coke. I love that there was. I'd love them to pay me. I love your product Coke. Give me some money. I will die from your product down the road. It will take my life. Anyway, you go up there, you talk to a Chet, we'll call him or maybe there's another white woman working jacquisha and you say, I'd like a soda because you don't need to tell her what kind of pop anymore. They don't have a pop behind the counter. They don't. They refuse to. Now there's a machine outside of the counter for you to go to to fill up, for your convenience. Sounded good on paper to the management, I suppose, but when you have two people working, maybe even one, doesn't matter. It could be four. There's always a line that's backed up like 30 people deep or there's like four different lines that are all moving like once every three minutes because the person still has to ring up the soda that's like $8. Give you the cup, you know, dink around with all the other shit, try to upsell you on a Stubbs card or whatever the dumb thing the movie theater is offering for a credit. They give you the card, then you have to go into a separate queue, a separate line to wait for this machine that stand alone to pick out your soda. The problem here is it's twofold. One fold, you're waiting in two lines. Twofold, you're waiting behind some jackass that has never experienced any sort of technology in his or her existence and everything they're seeing is is fresh and it scares them. I was at a theater a couple weeks ago with an elderly couple. Elderly people in this day and age, that's just a shit storm. If they're not with someone a little younger that can help them out, may God have mercy on your soul because you're going to pay the price. I got behind an elderly couple who was looking to get a sun kissed. Now there's a lot of options at these newer machines, if you haven't seen one, let me break it down. You have a standalone unit on there. There's a bunch of bubbles to touch which kind of flavor you want. So you're looking for the coke, you push it, then it brings up a myriad of different coke options. Cherry coke, lime coke, diet coke, Coca-Cola cancer, whatever you want is there. It's at your fingertips. These old people though, they don't understand it. They're like, what do I do here? They're pushing the bubbles, things are moving, things are happening. There's always one machine that's broken. They might only have two available, two separate machines. One's broken. There's some like Windows 95 error message. So that's fucked. After three or so minutes of what felt like an eternity to me, the old couple inevitably gives up. They go to the counter, talk to the one person working, say what they're trying to accomplish, and then that person comes over and does it for them. And meanwhile, you're just sitting there like, this person could have just poured them the drink, we could have gone about our way, because this is where we're at now. At least in the American theaters, we have to just keep doing this song and dance until the theater drives everybody away. It's already bad enough you have people on their phones and that's just fine now in a lot of places. People in the audience just accept that this dipshit's going to be checking his phone every three minutes. There is nothing important in your life that you have to be on Facebook constantly. Watch the fucking movie, jackass. And it's bad enough that the food costs like $10 for a hot dog. I can go to Super America, the local gas station, buy two hot dogs and a large mountain dew for $2. That's a deal and a half. What are you trying to do to me theater? What are you trying to accomplish here? And it's not just old people that have problems. Sometimes I go up to these machines and I'm a little perturbed by the situation. They'll be out of a certain flavor or I'll try to go back and the bubble thing won't work right. The back row doesn't work. The thing stalls. And then I have to look for the ice machine, which for some reason is still an old fashioned ice cream style handle that you push in on. Everything else is touch except for the ice, which is this giant steel hammer that you push back to get ice out. Do it all the way. Don't go half ass on this. If everything else is digital, make the ice digital. Here's what I propose. Let the customer have it their way. Burger King this bitch. I don't know if that's been their slogan for over a decade, but I'm going with it. When you go to a theater now, you have the option of paying up at the counter or sometimes they have a digital reader that you can pick your movie time so you don't have to deal with the hufflepuff going on in the lines. Why is that not the de facto option for pop as well? Out of me going and waiting 10 minutes in a line because someone's ordering a slushie or a pretzel or whatever else their tummy can handle, I cut out the middleman. I be lining it to the soda machine. I push in what kind of size I want. A pop cup funnels out of a chute. I pick it up. I place it in and I complete the whole thing myself. Swipe the credit card to make the payment. Bada bing bada bang bada boom bada penis. I'm in the theater having a great old time. Meanwhile, Jacquisha and Chet are still trying to sell a sub's card to a dipshit. I'm watching previews I've seen 300 times already on the internet. Can we talk about that for a second too? This is a segue. I'm done with my pop machine rant. I've said what I needed. I set a solution. Here's a side rant. Why are movie trailers slash previews not exclusive to theaters still? That needs to happen. I see all the same previews online like two months ahead of time before I get to the movies for a brand new day one release. Going to the movies excited for what movie previews there could possibly be was like the best experience about going to the movies. I would sit there like I'm already pumped for this, but oh man what's on the horizon? Instead it's oh god it's that fucking Tomb Raider trailer for the 300th time. It looks terrible. I don't want to watch this. And then you inevitably have all these other yacht hoos that are on their phones because they've seen the trailer too and they're like oh this isn't worth my time. I have important things to do. You don't. I don't. But I'm going to watch anyways out of respect for the 10% that haven't seen this preview. You're not special. You're not important. Get off your phone. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this pop fiasco and how your theater does it, your community does it, if they have a better suggestion, idea, plan in place or if they should go my route. Go all in or none in. Give me a fountain machine where I get the pop out. Or just go bottles. Can we just go bottles? We can do that, right? Are we worried about the shady people that are sneaking outside plastic bottles in? Is that why we're not doing that? Well, spoiler, the ones that are doing that are doing it anyways, okay? My mom would come in packing heat. She'd have like six bags of licorice, a bunch of gummy bear snacks. Meanwhile her son Adam is still dropping $15 on a large Coke and a bunch of crunch. I care about the theaters. I want to see him succeed. Eventually, we are going to have this straight to Netflix, straight to Disney's paid app that they're going to be coming out with and theaters are going to be dead. I'm one of the few that's championing against that. Help me out.