A public apology to the Watershed

I never shoplifted as a child. I couldn’t really, my village only had one shop and it closed in 1993. I suppose I could have scrumped some apples but I didn’t like heights (or apples for that matter). Besides, trespassing in the countryside was a risky business. I wore a lot of striped clothing and badgers were public enemy number one. They had mugshots of badgers pinned up in the local Post Office. Or at least they would have done if it hadn’t closed in 1994. If a farmer had shot me it would have taken hours for an ambulance to arrive. These were the days before sat-navs and my village was located in the “here be monsters” section of most maps. Apples or no apples, unmarked country roads would definitely have kept the doctor away.

My teenage crime of choice was the exact opposite of shoplifting. Actually the exact opposite of shoplifting is shelf-stacking but that isn’t a crime. The pay and conditions are (speaking from experience), but that’s another matter. Back then I got my kicks from smuggling food into the cinema. I told myself that I wasn’t really a criminal- I was a hero fighting back against the multiplexes one Malteser at a time, like a sticky Zack De La Rocha. F**k you I won’t chew what you tell me.

I started small: a packet of crisps here, a sandwich there (here being Yeovil Cineworld and there being Yeovil Cineworld).  I smuggled a Mars Bar into Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and pretended I was committing industrial espionage. As time went on my schemes became more intricate. I’d watch the films beforehand and memorise the loud bits when I could open a can of coke. I’d leave bags of crisps open for a day or two in advance to soften them up and prevent loud crunching (the pros call this “cushioning”.) Once I smuggled a Terry’s Chocolate Orange into Ocean’s 12 and felt like I’d pulled off a better heist than the people on screen. I didn’t need eleven accomplices either. That would work out at less than two segments per person. Dawn French wouldn’t share hers with Terry, why would I share mine with Julia Roberts?

I thought those days were behind me. I got out of the game and moved to Bristol where all the retired food smugglers go. Tommy Choc-Pockets, The Kinder Twins, Trevor the Cinema Food Man – they’re all here. For two years I was never tempted to return to my old ways. On-demand internet video meant that I had little reason to go to the cinema. Or to leave the house at all for that matter. Netflix killed the everything star.

Last week though, temptation reared its chocolatey head, like a snake in the proverbial popcorn. I was running late for a film at The Watershed and I hadn’t eaten dinner. I decided to get the old crew back together for one last job. The old crew being me, my rucksack and a packet of partially melted Mini Eggs. As I entered the cinema, I realised that I’d made a horrible mistake. This wasn’t a faceless multiplex- this was a Bristol institution. The usher whose gaze I had to avoid wasn’t a sullen teenager working for minimum wage and unrestricted access to cardboard cut-outs of the Olsen twins- they were a nice person who liked films, and I was robbing them blind. It wasn’t taking candy from a baby so much as taking my own candy to visit a baby even though the baby sells candy and relies heavily on the profits in order to survive in a market largely dominated by huge multi-babies, and under constant threat from illegal pirate babies. That metaphor doesn’t really work but now you’re thinking about illegal pirate babies. I bet you’re picturing a skull and crossbones nappy. I Derren Browned you.

I realised that, unlike most films at The Watershed, morality isn’t black and white. I left the cinema feeling depressed, ashamed, and newly appreciative of Argentinian comedy. I was sick with guilt, or possibly the indigestion that comes from eating Mini Eggs out of a rucksack whilst pretending to sneeze. I vowed to never repeat my mistake. The Watershed are showing a documentary about Kurt Cobain at the moment but I won’t give into temptation, even though I would definitely get away with it in the darkness of the cinema. With the lights out, it’s less dangerous.

I decided to drown my sorrows. I nipped into Sainsburys Local and bought a can of beer. Now I just need to wait for a loud noise so I can open it.