Five Things I Hate About Movie Night

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“Who wants to watch a movie?” I asked the kids last night, thinking that’d keep them busy for a bit and give me some time to read a book.

What an idiot.

Naturally, there was a resounding YES! from the kids. But sadly for them, this was the last thing they agreed upon before I had to yell at them to get into bed, having not watched so much as a single frame of the opening credits of even a short flick.

Why?

Because, with their unintentional help, I suddenly remembered why we don’t have movie nights during the week:

  1. When the kids pick a movie. My son can’t pick it because the four girls will scream their disinterest. My daughter can’t pick a movie either. Which daughter? Doesn’t matter. None of my kids want to watch the same thing anymore and whatever anyone else chooses is ‘stupid’. We’ve tried them taking turns but if one picks a movie they happily sit and watch it but the other four walk off to pull the entire contents of their wardrobes onto the floor of their rooms. That’s almost the exact opposite of what we’re trying to achieve here, which is a break for us.
  2. When I pick a movie. Actually I don’t mind this as much. All five will be screaming and complaining, but at least I’ll be happy. Trouble is I tend to pick movies I remember from my childhood as wonderful which usually have at least one scene in them which is guaranteed to cause nightmares, like the rodents of unusual size in The Princess Bride, or the librarian in Ghostbusters.
  3. Finding the remote. We’ve bought three Apple TV remotes in the last year. Today, for the first time ever, I got to replace the battery in one. It was an exciting moment. I should have taken a selfie.
  4. Popcorn. Why is it so hard to transfer popcorn from a bowl to a mouth? Our floor typically ends up resembling a faux Christmas setting.
  5. Bloody Bedtime. Quite aside from starting the movie too late, meaning everyone stays up an hour past their bedtime, movies make kids super exhausted. So exhausted they can’t manage the six or seven meters from the lounge to their beds. They always want to sleep in the lounge room after a movie so a great night can end up with a shit storm raining down threats and compromises. Usually from my wife to me because I said yes to this crap while she was in the shower.

At this rate the movie will be out before I finish my book.

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“Raising a family on little more than laughs.”

4 Comments

  • Sounds like my house, but there’s only two kids now!! I’m actually starting to think who ever invented the one child policy is a freakin genius!!!

  • Apple TV remotes? We stuck adhesive magnets to the back of ours and now it lives stuck to the heater when not in use (in theory of course – most of the time it’s down the couch cushions or under the rug).

  • We lost our Apple remote aaaaages ago…Did you know you can turn any old remote into an apple remote? You train it on your Apple TV, my hubby did it so I’m sketchy on the details but can find out if you like?

  • Did you know there is an app on your iPhone or iPad (if you have one) called remote that works better than any Apple TV remote. Only thing is it doesn’t turn it on but that is easily solved by turning the box off and on at the wall or pulling the power cable out and popping it back in. Do this all the time when I lose those little bloody remotes.

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