#because my manager couldn't tell her two teenage female employees apart

[onbearfeet]

Hi! Former movie theater usher here. I was one of the people who cleaned theaters. I voted "throw it away yourself", and would like to explain why, even though we do in fact understand that it is our job to clean the theater and do not particularly object to doing so, we'd still like you to toss what you can. In no particular order, all from my actual experience:

1. There is an ENTIRE THEATER to clean, and we need all the time we can get to deal with whatever is worst. Speaking of...

2. Someone has spilled popcorn down five or six terraces and the boss didn't give us a broom, so we're picking up kernels by hand.

3. Why did my shoes just go "squish"?

4. That is an artistic sculpture constructed entirely of origami-ed Starburst wrappers and -- yes, held together with already-chewed bits of Starburst.

5. Among adults, the amount of mess in a theater is inversely proportionate to the quality of the movie. But a lot of movies SUCK.

6. Among children, mess is DIRECTLY proportionate to film quality. And some kids' movies are GREAT. (I cleaned theaters after Lilo and Stitch screenings. The horror ...)

7. Yep, that's a spilled soda. We don't have a mop. Somebody go get some paper towels. God, it's always Mountain Dew, isn't it?

8. That is NOT Mountain Dew. Somebody get the bleach before Javi starts sympathy-puking.

9. Where. Is the FUCKING. ARMREST.

10. They did WHAT with their nachos?! Jalapeños and all?!

11. That's a dirty diaper. This is an R-rated horror movie.

12. Oh, God, oh, God, someone bought a hot dog despite all our mimed warnings.

13. Okay, who lost a four-year-old?!

14. WAIT SOMEONE GOT STABBED IN ROOM FIVE TELL ME EVERYTHING

15. What do you mean we only have five minutes?!

So yeah, that's why we tend to say thank you when you dump your popcorn bucket in our wheelie bin on your way out. Gives us a few precious extra moments to deal with ... everything else.

Since “wildly vehement disagreements” are on my mind, here is the most brutal forum fight I ever witnessed, and I will try to present it with as little judgment as possible:

It was Fametracker, maybe 2003 or so. A discussion came up somehow: what do you do with your trash after seeing a movie in the theater? You know, popcorn buckets, candy boxes, soda cups, used napkins?

Two sides emerged, and each side felt that they were obviously, unquestionably, self-evidently right:

1) You leave your trash in your seat because they pay employees to pick it up for you

2) You throw away your own trash because you are capable of doing so (if you are)

That was it. I have NEVER seen such vitriol. The entire userbase got involved and people probably got banned over it. There seemed to be some kind of regional breakdown; whichever side you argued for, it was something that EVERYONE around you did, you had grown up in the obvious rightness of doing it, and it was OFFENSIVE to suggest doing otherwise. I am sure you are staring at this going, “You… you obviously [XYZ]?” However certain you feel about that, there were people on that forum (and maybe even here!) who were exactly as certain of the opposite.