"The
Rat In the Popcorn"
(From
the forthcoming book Secrets of
Movie Theaters)
by
Dennis Nyback
It
was in the late 70's at Seattle's
Moore-Egyptian Theater, home of the
Seattle International Film Festival,
that the incident of the dead rat
happened. When the theater was built
in 1907 it was just called "The
Moore" but when a couple of young
bon vivants from Canada in 1974 decided
to turn its' two balconies, six stage
boxes, 1500 seats and an orchestra
pit into a movie theater, they thought
calling it the "Egyptian"
would give it that air of an old-time
movie palace. The fact that most of
the old-timemovie palaces in Seattle
had already been razed, or soon would
be, didn't seem to bother them, but
then drug use can have that effect
on one's perceptions. It took a large
staff to run the old barn and with
the drug use, romantic attachments,
and just plain sexual licentiousness,
not everyone got along. This story
concerns four of them: Three candy
girls and a janitor.
Two
of the candy girls had been working
there for a while when the third one
was hired. Needless to say, for no
tangible reasons, they hated her.
The janitor had been there longer
and he didn't like anybody, but then
nobody liked him either. One day he
found a dead rat in the auditorium
and instead of giving it a decent
burial, or just throwing it out with
the trash, he decided it would be
fun to put it in some conspicuous
place behind the candy counter where
the girls would happen upon it and
scream. Whether or not they screamed
when they found it I do not know,
all I know is that the new girl wasn't
around when the other two discovered
it and they decided it was the perfect
thing to use to put the new girl in
her place. They kept it hidden, waiting
patiently for the perfect moment,
and eventually there was one. The
new girl, not smart enough to pour
sodas, was in charge of popcorn. While
her back was to the machine, one of
the girls quickly brought out the
dead rat and adroitly dropped it into
an empty popcorn cup. The plan was
that the new girl would turn, pick
up the cup, look inside, scream and
walk off the job never to return again.
The
plan worked perfectly, up to a point.
The only problem was that after picking
up the cup she didn't look inside,
didn't see the dead rat, didn't scream,
and didn't walk off the job. What
she did do was fill the cup with popcorn,
covering the dead rat, and served
it to an unsuspecting customer who
had no idea of the movie palace intrigues
behind the scenes. Roughly ten minutes
later, the scream was finally heard
and shortly thereafter a very upset
man came charging out of the auditorium,
vomitus dripping from his chin, holding
the popcorn cup as far away from his
body as his arms could reach. He had
spent ten minutes eating the unbeknownst-to-him-rat-contaminated
popcorn and put it in his mouth and
then, at the bottom of the cup, his
hand found the dead rat. No one knows
if he mistook the rat for a large
clump of popcorn and put it in his
mouth, but even without that, he had
every right to be upset.
The
only people in the cavernous lobby
were the three candy girls, so he
charged across to them and thrust
the dead rat under their noses and
demanded to know how it got into his
popcorn. The new girl was understandably
amazed and the other two were quick
enough on their feet to imitate her.
About this time, the word "lawsuit"
first entered the discourse, and other
than a flat denial, the candy girls
couldn't think up a plausible story.
By this time, the manager on duty
had wandered by and sizing up the
situation, more accurately than most
people would give him credit for,
said "It must have been delivered
in the pre-pop." His quick thinking
cleverly shifted the specter of a
lawsuit away from the theater and
directed it at a company called Harlan
Fairbanks, supplier of most of the
Pre-Popped Popcorn sold in the Seattle-Tacoma
metropolitan area. As ridiculous as
it may seem to suppose that a dead
rat could be delivered in a clear
plastic bag, emptied into the popcorn
machine and scooped into an individual
cup without anyone noticing, the guilty
candy girls immediately seized on
it as the gospel truth.
The damaged patron, faced with the
blanket denials of everyone present,
finally wrote down all of their names
and left the building. He took the
popcorn cup nad the dead rat with
him. After a couple of months, the
brouhaha died down and I suppose that
the customer finally gave up his plans
of instant wealth when confronted
with the righteous stonewalling from
everyone at the Moore-Egyptian and
at the Harlan Fairbanks company.
Fortunately, this story has a happy
ending. The new candy girl survived
the nefarious plot and eventually
became good friends with the other
girls. The janitor had to clean up
the vomit and never did become well
liked, but I suppose that was a result
of his questionable sense of humor.
(Editor's Note: You can visit
the official website for the Moore-Egyptian
theatre at http://www.themoore.com/main.html)
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