I used to go to 100-plus movies a year. Then I became a parent.

Last week, I saw a movie in the theater for the first time in a while. An adult movie. (Well, it was a superhero movie, so “adult” may be a stretch. But it’s not exactly for five-year-olds either. A guy gets shot in the head, point-blank. I think my kid can wait a few years to see that.) It’s a rare occurrence these days.

I’m just not going to spend 100 bucks on a babysitter so I can go sit in a dark room and not talk to my wife. If I’m spending 100 bucks on a babysitter, I’m gonna go sit in a candlelit room and silently stare at my wife while we guzzle overpriced booze. So the only time I see movies is when I take my kid, and that’s not the same.

Because taking kids to the movies sucks.

Why Taking Kids to the Movies Sucks

• With the exception of Pixar, most kids movies are garbage. No, I don’t want to see a magic snail race against Formula One cars, WTF?
• Kids always want concessions. Concessions cost $300. And they always want Twizzlers. Twizzlers are the actual worst. (FIGHT ME!)
• They don’t get the classic “hole in the bottom of the popcorn box” joke.
• It’s a really expensive way to experience your kid complaining about being bored after twenty minutes.
• The posters and the trailers and the branded popcorn bags all conspire to make your five-year-old want to see super-violent movies that are too old for him so you spend the next three weeks lying about their release date (while simultaneously trying to find a way to see it yourself without letting him find out).
• Seriously, what happened to live-action movies that little kids can go see without getting home and pretending to shoot their baby brother?
• I mean, it’s not like I want to sit through Benji Goes On SnapChat or Benji Does Parkour or whatever the updated version of the crap they gave us in the 80s would be, but still. We used to have options, and even if they stunk, just going to the movies was a treat – for kids and for parents, who occasionally had something they could enjoy with their children. Now it’s either Pixar, wait until they’re twelve, or bend the arbitrary rules and take them to something that might scar them for life (except it won’t. I saw Aliens in the theater when I was 9 and I only occasionally disembowel squirrels. I still fucking hate Paul Reiser though, but that has more to do with his “comedy”.)
• The only thing I hate more than having to go to the bathroom in the middle of a movie is having to escort a kid there.
• WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL MY POPCORN YOU LITTLE VULTURE!
• Some asshole brought little kids to a movie. And it was YOU.
• Kids are so loud. I can’t even hear the terrible new Randy Newman song everyone else inexplicably loves because my kid keeps screaming at me for eating his Snow-caps.
• It’s much harder to make out with your spouse, both because your kid is sitting in between you and also because the last time you did that you ended up having to take kids to the movies.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t even mentioned taking a group of kids to the movies.

Sweet Jesus I didn’t even know there was anything louder than a movie theater’s high-tech Dolby THX surround-sound deal, but there is, and it’s a room full of children amped up on Sour Patch Kids and big screen SpongeBob. NEVER AGAIN!