Bon appetit!
Published Mar 5, 2022 12:05 am
MEDIUM RARE
Jullie Y. Daza
Does Alert Level 1 read the return of bad manners in cinemas?
People kicking the chair in front of them, eating popcorn cooked in rancid butter, unwrapping their green mango smothered in bagoong. People swapping movie reviews while the movie is unfolding on the screen, parents unable to stop their kiddies from crying, adults and teenagers turning on their phones to receive or make calls, etc.
For a while there, it was almost heaven to be inside the theater with only nine other ticket holders (as when “Death on the Nile” was showing) and two others (during the first-day screening of “West Side Story”)...
Just thinking about it, I dread that one of these days I could be sitting next to or in the vicinity of one or more of those special folks described above, now that “new normal” has replaced the restrictions of a COVID-conscious protocol in movie theaters and elsewhere. Then again, can anything be more stressful than the reality of traffic jams waiting to spoil your day before it has a chance to begin, just a few meters outside your gate?
That, and the very real possibility that, now that restaurants, malls, and other commercial establishments are back in business 100 percent, parking will be a problem. For the good old, bad old days of 30-50 percent capacities.
All through the two years of the March 2020-March 2022 lockdown, some restaurants behaved better or worse than others. When we ordered shrimp and chicken barbecue for take-out one Sunday, there was only one shrimp and its shell was burned, charred. When five of us sat down for a meal in a pricey restaurant, we were given something we did not order, while the noodles we did order arrived after dessert was served.
Not all restaurants were in the habit of granting senior citizens their VAT-free privilege when they showed up to buy take-out food. (Thank you, McDonald’s, for giving seniors their discounts even when they are not physically present.)
As for that other never-leave-home-without-it card, the one that certifies you’re safe to enter a public place because you’ve been jabbed with a vaccine, security guards are no longer interested in looking at them. But don’t take my word for it.
Jullie Y. Daza
Does Alert Level 1 read the return of bad manners in cinemas?
People kicking the chair in front of them, eating popcorn cooked in rancid butter, unwrapping their green mango smothered in bagoong. People swapping movie reviews while the movie is unfolding on the screen, parents unable to stop their kiddies from crying, adults and teenagers turning on their phones to receive or make calls, etc.
For a while there, it was almost heaven to be inside the theater with only nine other ticket holders (as when “Death on the Nile” was showing) and two others (during the first-day screening of “West Side Story”)...
Just thinking about it, I dread that one of these days I could be sitting next to or in the vicinity of one or more of those special folks described above, now that “new normal” has replaced the restrictions of a COVID-conscious protocol in movie theaters and elsewhere. Then again, can anything be more stressful than the reality of traffic jams waiting to spoil your day before it has a chance to begin, just a few meters outside your gate?
That, and the very real possibility that, now that restaurants, malls, and other commercial establishments are back in business 100 percent, parking will be a problem. For the good old, bad old days of 30-50 percent capacities.
All through the two years of the March 2020-March 2022 lockdown, some restaurants behaved better or worse than others. When we ordered shrimp and chicken barbecue for take-out one Sunday, there was only one shrimp and its shell was burned, charred. When five of us sat down for a meal in a pricey restaurant, we were given something we did not order, while the noodles we did order arrived after dessert was served.
Not all restaurants were in the habit of granting senior citizens their VAT-free privilege when they showed up to buy take-out food. (Thank you, McDonald’s, for giving seniors their discounts even when they are not physically present.)
As for that other never-leave-home-without-it card, the one that certifies you’re safe to enter a public place because you’ve been jabbed with a vaccine, security guards are no longer interested in looking at them. But don’t take my word for it.