The Movie Theater Should Give You Big Cups for Water

So I’m at Dave’s Hot Chicken, naturally, and I get the Hot combo. It comes with a fried chicken sandwich and one tender at a level of spiciness called Hot. 

I don’t know if you’ve had their Nashville-style hot chicken, but it’s basically fried chicken dunked in hot oil and dusted with dry rub. 

There’s an ascending chronology of spice-levels available, but at Dave’s Hot Chicken, you get the Hot. You don’t get Mild. You don’t get Medium. To be honest, you don’t even get the Extra-Hot or Reaper, for which you have to sign a waiver. 

No. At Dave’s Hot Chicken, you get the Hot, in the same way that you get the cacio-e-pepe in Rome or the Crunchwrap at Taco Bell.

Make no mistake, this shit’s hot. This ain’t your average few dollops of hot sauce on KFC. Think of the spiciness scale as equivalent to that at a Thai or Indian restaurant, where the mild is medium, the medium is hot, the hot is I Made A Grave Mistake, and anything above that is simply masochism. 

Maybe the masochism’s the point. It’s so bad, it’s good--orgasmically, addictively, mischievously good. 

Like with BDSM, it’s about the pleasure as much as the pain. Dave’s Hot Chicken isn’t merely hot for the sake of being hot. It's also flavorful, crispy, and juicy. Just make sure to bring a bottle of Tums. 

Appalling acid-reflux, however, was the least of my grievances that day. 

In addition to a storage unit of Tums, I also required an ample supply of water.

I have this Jewy little trick when ordering fast-food to finagle a free cup of it. 

After I pay, and the cashier thanks me, I feign forgetfulness and ask--all cute and innocent--if I could please have a cup for water, in the same way that a Dickensian orphan might ask for a nickel. 

Almost always my charm rewards me with a free, medium-sized soda cup sufficient enough to wash down the sheer sodium I’m set to consume.

Not this time. 

When I asked for a cup of water at Dave’s Hot Chicken, I was handed an offensively puny plastic receptacle that could barely fit enough piss for a drug test. 

I chuckled in disbelief. 

“Uhhh, I’m sorry,” I said. “But what the fuck?”

The teenage cashier shrugged in reply.

“Sorry, sir, I’m not supposed to give you soda cups for water.” “It’s our store policy.”

Listen here, you little shit, I thought. I just spent $20 on chicken that will set my esophagus on fire, and you can’t get me a goddamn normal cup of water!?

Also, your “store policy?” Who are you, Adolf Eichmann? Don’t think that Just Following Orders absolves you of any guilt, young man. You’re still complicit in facilitating the injustice of my dehydration. 

Well, if that’s how they’re gonna treat a loyal customer, you better believe I’m gonna make a scene about it. 

I took my order, set up camp on the metal table beside the soda fountain, and constantly refilled my microscopic cup while I ate my scalding hot chicken. 

“Sir,” he said. “You’re really not supposed to eat there.”

“Shut up, nerd,” I said in my head.

“Dude,” I replied, this time actually. “If you’re gonna give me this cup, I’m gonna keep refilling it, like, lol.”

Somehow they didn’t kick me out, but eventually I became bored of the bit, and too lazy to keep refilling my cup, so I left to sit at a table -- not in any way defeated, but triumphant. After all, it’s the original stand that matters.

I likened myself in that moment to Civil Rights leaders who refused to move seats at Whites-only diners, which is obviously the dumbest thing ever and incredibly offensive.

I would say I’m never going back, but that’s obviously not true. I can’t resist that chicken, and they know it. That’s what makes them so evil. They know I’ll keep coming back, which means they can keep swindling me out of a proper portion of water. It’s sickening. 

What’s worse, water-cup dwarfism can be found even in small-businesses who ought to treat customers with a little more dignity. 

Since childhood I’ve fumed at the Canton American Theater’s utter contempt for its customer. Like at Dave’s, when you ask for water, they proffer a plastic cup that seriously couldn’t hydrate an amoeba. 

Accentuating the offense is the fact that, also like at Dave’s, the movie theater is a place where you simply need water. You don’t have a choice. Sure, you can also get Pepsi, and in fact you should, but halfway through your bathtub of buttered popcorn and smuggled bag of peanut m&m’s, you’ll be gasping for water like Spongebob in that one episode. 

Here’s the racket behind American Theater: they sell bottles of water for $3.50. That’s why you can’t receive a humane amount of it for free. It’s an insane price, up with which no self-respecting citizen should have to put -- especially given the eye-watering cost of admission, popcorn, and candy!

By the time you reach your seat, you’ve been robbed of everything but the clothes on your back. It’s only right that you receive enough complimentary water to last beyond the previews. 

Believe me, I’ve tried many, many times to guilt-trip them into putting my tap water in a Pepsi cup, but the same charade plays itself out every time. 

“Oh yeah, by the way, can I get a cup for water?” I ask, after I’ve already paid of course. 

Some kid hands me a sadistically small plastic cup. 

“Really dude,” I protest, “are you fucking serious?”

He assures me he is serious, at which point I take the cup, finish it in one gulp, and hand it back to be refilled. 

“Again,” I demand.

He looks at his manager, the black-haired woman who I think has worked there since time began. I look her in the eyes. She scowls at me. I narrow my eyelids and scowl back. We are now engaged in what can only be described as a Jewish Standoff. Who will be the most stubborn penny-pincher? 

Begrudgingly, she allows the boy to refill the cup. I have won this battle, I think, in the voice of a David Attenborough narration. But it’s clear I won’t be granted a second one, meaning I’ll have to buy a bottle if -- nay, when -- I get thirsty during the movie. Which means I’ve lost the war. 

Folks, a better world is possible. We could all march on Main Street tomorrow, picket-signs and pitchforks in hand, and demand water-cup justice. We don’t have to deal with dystopian dispensations of our one true lifeblood. Especially not at locations where its proper rationing can mean the difference between life and death. 

Let us be resolved that no child will ever again have to endure the hideous injustice of not having enough water for movie theater popcorn -- or, god forbid, for Nashville hot chicken. And let us condemn forever the banal evil of those who help facilitate such injustices.