5

Animated Movie Theater Menus

Ticket sales were lagging. Movie theaters had been fighting a losing battle against the likes of Netflix, YouTube, and PornHub for audience's attentions. They needed to do something. So larger chains started renovating their theaters to make their seats cushy and reclining, some added bars, and many expanded their menus so an entire date and a handjob can be condensed into one building. All of that is awesome. Except the handjob part. Don't do handjobs in public; it's illegal and gross.

Now the movie theater concession stand menu is more than popcorn, candy, and fountain drinks. It's four types of flatbread pizza, six different types of pretzels, eight flavors of popcorn that can be mixed and matched to create over 40,320 combinations. Maybe a cheeseburger that'll take 25 minutes to make and you'll miss the first act of the movie. Add on top of that the debate as to whether it's ethical to spend $87 for a large popcorn-and-soda combo. Within a handful of years, the concession stand experience became much more complicated than it used to be. If you want something more than a standard popcorn and soda, you actually have to read the extensive menu.

4

Pre-Recorded Drive-Thru Messages

Drive-thrus are about convenience and simplicity. Add even one more step to the process of pulling up to a speaker and blowing out some poor high-schooler's ear with your screamed order of a #5 with large fries, and you've effectively turned elementary school arithmetic into quantum physics. Small improvements, like splitting one drive-thru into two and screens that let you see what the cashier is typing, have further simplified the process without adding extra hurdles. And then some fast food HQ funny guy thought it would be pants-shittingly hysterical if when someone rolled up and said "Hello," an aggressive voice immediately tried to sell them an apple pie, and after the person declined, an entirely separate disinterested voice would ask them for their order as if the first voice hadn't happened.

3

Gas Station Pumps With TVs In Them

There was a point in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election when I was so saturated with the vile cynicism of it all that I had to turn away from it for a few days to cleanse my brain. I didn't feel like I needed to run to something that was happy and comforting; I just needed a quick bath in neutrality. I didn't do anything special. I just lived my life without the constant IV drip of cynicism. It was a much-needed reminder that I can unplug from the horrors of the world. It was great 43 minutes. And then a fucking gas station pump dragged me back into it.

2

Public Restroom Toilet Motion Sensors

I tend to brag a lot in my columns. I hate to do it again, but here goes: I've pooped in a large number of public restrooms, an unusually high amount of them in grocery stores. It must be some instinctual urge whereby seeing all that food prompts my body to "make room for more." I'm not sure. As you'd imagine, I am no stranger to the paper toilet seat liners some public restrooms provide so you don't have to mash your cheeks against the butt remnants of 10,000 strangers. They're like condoms for your whole ass. I've never looked into the data on how sanitary those things actually are, and likely never will. I'm really just crossing my fingers and hoping it'll protect me from the work of a piss artist painting up a masterpiece on his toilet seat canvas.

1

Embedded Videos That Follow You Down The Page

The closest thing I've ever experienced to being relentlessly followed by a slasher movie villain is whenever an auto-playing video on a website dislodges itself from the top of the page and follows me down as I scroll. No matter how far or fast I run, every time I look back, it's always a step behind me. I've tried juking it like a Heisman-winning running back -- a couple scrolls down, then three up, and then five down. Nothing. It's still there. It's always still there.

I sympathize with sites that do this, but despise them for doing it. Ad blockers have robbed all of your favorite sites of hard-earned advertising money, so now they're cutting back to adapt. A lot of the internet only gives the illusion of being free. Blocking ads means less revenue for every website you visit, including the ones you actually enjoy and hope don't one day disappear into the void of a 404 error. Ad blockers are a weapon to fight the intrusive ads, but a lot of us end up using them like nuclear bombs when all we need is a flyswatter. It turns ads into an arms race -- you use an ad blocker, they tell you that you can't access the site with the blocker on. Turn off your ad blocker and a video chases you to the ends of the Earth until your story becomes a cautionary tale that teaches kids in the distant future a lesson in how nothing's free except healthcare and jetpacks. (It's the future; they've figured some shit out.)

As soon as I see a video appear at the top of a page, I immediately mute the tab. The video continues its relentless follow into oblivion without a peep. As I see the video in my periphery when I'm reading the text, I can't help but feel sorry for it as it keeps up with every flick of the scroll wheel. Then the same weird little bit of me that thinks I've hurt a shirt's feelings when I choose to wear a different shirt kicks in. Maybe the relentlessly following video isn't a supernatural murderer. Maybe it's a hungry, scraggly street dog peering in through the window on a snowy day as I drink hot cocoa by a fire. Come on in, sad little video. I'll watch you, even though I kind of hope you malfunction and set your entire website on fire.

Luis is on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

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