To the freak sitting next to me at Raiders of the Lost Ark last night

Thank you so much for enriching my moviegoing experience last night with your oh-so-clever comments and witty bodily noises. You were so polite when you asked if the seats next to us were taken, I was utterly unprepared for the delight you would be during the rest of the film.

At first, I thought you were just anxious for the film to start. Your amusing catcalls and loud shouts of "I've got it!!" every time they called a number for the raffle just got funnier and funnier every single time you repeated it! But I dismissed it as puerile youths unaccustomed to spending more than two minutes without some sort of media stimulation. So when the lights dimmed, I thought that the film would act as a cellulose pacifier for you and your delightful companions.

Oh how wrong I was!

I should have guessed from the lengthy discussion you had during the opening sequence about the filmmakers search for a mountain that would match the paramount mountain in size and shape, that this wasn't going to be just any ordinary film watching experience for me or the other patrons around us. And when you shrieked in ear splitting falsetto at the scene with the darts, the scene with the tarantulas, the scene with the dead body, AND the scene with the huge rolling boulder, my suspicions were confirmed.

My favorite part, however, was not the running commentary you and your friends obviously thought would be so entertaining for the rest of us, nor the lengthy arguments you had about the nationality of certain characters, nor the whistles and catcalls you performed when the heroine appeared for the first time. No, my absolute favorite parts were the bodily noises you continually made, clearing your throat, snorting your nose, and burping so loudly and so close to my ear that I was able to guess what you had for dinner! Thank you!

I also particularly enjoyed the fact that, after I asked you to be quiet, you made crying and sniffling noises, and then loudly announced to your buddies that you couldn't talk because the "freak" next to you would get mad. Yes, you were right. I was getting mad.

Yet you continued unabated. Even when my normally unflappable fiance leaned over and suggested very colorfully and vividly exactly how and why you should shut up, you were still insistent on sharing your obviously priceless point of view with the entire theater.

And as an added bonus, your delightful friends got up not once, not twice, not three times, but FOUR times during the movie for more popcorn and sodas! I must say, being that close to them that many times during such a short time span was an experience I will treasure.

When you started trying to actively engage me in your dialog by shouting "Watch this! Watch this! This is great! He's got a hanger!" you obviously assumed that I had not seen this film half a dozen times before like everyone else in the theater. Perhaps that's why you looked so surprised when I stared at you as though you were a raving lunatic. Alas, I shall never know.

It was, I must say, with a heavy heart that I watched you and your friends rise from your seats for a fifth time, a good twenty minutes before the movie was over and file painfully slowly out of the aisle. Your witty parting statement of "It was nice sitting next to you," brought tears to my eyes, as did the curse words my fiance poured forth with as you trod on his foot and departed.

And to the other patrons sitting in front and behind us: thank you so very much for your unending support during these altercations! Your absolute silence I'm sure really shocked the offenders and made them consider that their actions might be affecting people other than themselves.