The salesgirl in the ticket booth thought that Howard had tried to play a trick on his mother and buy tickets for a film she hadn’t intended for him to see and was gratified to see how Anita had reacted to her unruly son’s behavior. Making him experience the children’s version of a “G” rated movie was a singularly appropriate punishment for his attempt to overrule his mother’s wishes. She had seen the infantile behavior that teenaged boys exhibited at the movies multiple times during her short tenure as an assistant manager and had had to help clean up the messes they made in the theatre on a number of occasions. As far as she was concerned, all teenaged boys should be accompanied by their mothers to the movies and strapped into their seats to keep them out of trouble. If she had had her way, drinks for teenaged boys would only be sold in disposable soft plastic baby bottles to keep them from damaging the screen or spilling their drinks on the floor. For that matter, she wouldn’t have sold them popcorn unless they wore a feeding bib with a catchpocket to minimize the mess. The minute sixteen-year-old boys went to the movies on their own, they acted like they had forgotten all the manners they had learned since they were two-year-olds. In the assistant manager’s humble opinion, they should be treated the way they acted, i.e., they should be babysat and handled like the unhousebroken, infantile barbarians they were.
Anita went to the snack bar and bought a big box of buttered popcorn and drinks for the two of them as Howard waited in the lobby. After taking his drink and the box of popcorn from Anita, Howard led the way to the ticket takers. When he tried to enter the movie he had wanted to see, the ticket takers politely but firmly turned him away and told him that the color coding on his ticket indicated that he had paid to see another movie and could not be allowed to switch theatres. Howard was incensed. He asked one of the ticket takers which movie was the ticket sold for and was told that the ticket could only be used for the movie “Big Baby”. Howardís mouth dropped open in shock at Anita’s betrayal as Anita gently pushed him aside and gave her ticket to the ticket-takers. A moment later he realized that if he didnít follow her, heíd be left behind. Howard hurried to catch up with her, fuming at the trick she had played on him. It never occurred to him that he had tried to do the same thing to her first and that what she had done was his quid pro quo.
