Many of the nearby movie theaters have swapped to an automated approach to buying tickets. You can walk right in, either with tickets pre-purchased on your phone, or you can buy them using a kiosk in the lobby. It’s completely possible, and even common to get movie tickets without interacting with another human being. I tend to despise talking to people, so most of the time this is a lovely advancement in movie theater technology. That being said, sometimes that ease is just not in the cards for me.
Last week, I went to a local AMC theater to see Blumhouse’s new horror flick, The Black Phone. For whatever reason, their kiosks were down so I had to actually talk to the worker to purchase my ticket. Terrifying. I swallowed the vomit in my throat along with my fear and approached the desk. We talked and I got my ticket without a problem. After handing me my receipt, the worker says, “Enjoy the movie!” You know, like they usually do. Without realizing the atrocities I was about to commit, I replied, “You too!”
The lobby went silent. A mother dropped her massive Pepsi on her youngest child. The popcorn from the concession stand burned. I looked back into the ticket desk worker’s now saddened eyes. How could they enjoy the movie too? How? You only bought one ticket! How!
I handed the worker my ticket and walked out the front door of the theater without looking back. It was too late for me there, there’s no coming back from that.
In between the inhuman convulsions on my ride home, I thought about how traumatic that experience was and how I may need to see a psychiatrist sooner rather than later. However, I soon remembered that this was not the most vile and dehumanizing experience of my life. No, despite the horrors of the last hour, there was still worse. I looked over my shoulder into the backseat of my car and that’s when I saw it.
The middle seat.
Have you heard the story of the toddler that died in the middle seat 14 years ago? No, you haven’t. Because sitting in the middle is a fate far worse than death. It’s something sinister. Something that is almost unavoidable to each and every one of us. Something that haunts our everyday lives and often dictates the people we become. Something that might even guide a future car investment (those heroes who buy the cars without middle seats are deeply damaged, but they’re also preventing future damage at their hand).
Personally, I would rank the middle seat among some of the worst things imaginable. Right up there with racism and Arcadia’s one time password. I mean there simply isn’t a reason for them to exist aside from blatantly humiliating the victim unlucky enough to sit there. Lucky for me, I am the oldest child (and the favorite of course) in a family of four which means I am ALMOST immune to the horrors of the middle. The conflict did not come up super often because my brother and I had our respective sides and that was that thanks to it just being the two of us (sucks to suck families of five). However, this still wasn’t guaranteed, and the instances where I was confined to that middle seat still come up often with my therapist.
It’s already bad enough that you have to sit in the back seat, especially once you’re a “big kid,” but it’s utterly demoralizing to hop in and scoot to the middle, only to straddle that random bump on the floor for the whole ride. What even is that lump on the ground for anyway? Added discomfort? It’s bad enough that you get a faceful of lap or shoulder every time there’s a turn sharper than a 30 degree angle, but now you have to do it while your legs are elevated? What kind of godless Earth do we live on?I did some research on why this carpeted tumor might exist, turning to only the most reputable of sources when it comes to education: Reddit. I read about front wheel drive cars and rear wheel drive cars and how they both are so inefficient that they can’t help but spill their parts into the seating area of the car. Of course, that’s not actually what it said but I’m paraphrasing for your sake (you can thank me later). I even read an answer from bjornartl that explains, “It creates a slightly different height for hips and shoulders in the hopes of fitting people together like a zipper. Being higher also improves the middle passenger’s chance of getting a view through the windows which is important in order to not get carsick and to not feel claustrophobic in the cramped space.” Which is actually just a load of bullshit because anyone who’s sat in the middle seat knows that it does exactly the opposite. In all of my research, I only found one response that truly made sense. Thank you drgonzo67 for this gem:
So, the way I see it these lumps only exist in the backseat as a good ol’ “fuck you” to the least favorite child of any given family. That’s not even the worst part either. I like my personal space just about as much as Phillip Jacobs does. So with that in mind, there’s nothing I desire more after a long ride squished between two people than to peel off my skin starting with my face. I don’t particularly like to cuddle up with my younger brother because my mom decided to take a sharp turn into the Wawa parking lot.
To be frank, I couldn’t give less of a damn about Elon Musk’s self-driving cars. I don’t want some technological marvel of a vehicle. All I need is one single automotive engineer to open their eyes. Maybe they were the least favorite child when they were younger, forced to the middle with no way out. And for that I am deeply sorry. But if you’re reading this, you can be the change. You can save the least favorite children of the future from suffering the same way you did. You can bring forward the next revolutionary change to the automotive industry.
Please, you’re our only hope.
Featured image credited to Maxim Hopman via Unsplash.
