“You know what I don’t get?” Vinyl asked as we left the ticket booth and made our way towards the concession stand.
“What’s that?” I responded.
“Why does organic food cost more than regular food. Veggies and fruit... they always cost more when they’re labelled as organic,” she told me. I glanced down at her, debating where this idea would have sprung from. We were in a movie theatre, so her surroundings were out of the question.
We stepped into the relatively empty line, and I silently thanked Octavia for convincing us to leave earlier than we had planned.
“And why do we even need to list things as ‘organic’ or ‘not-organic’ anyway? What kind of processing do you have to do to a carrot to make it ‘not-organic?’ Aren’t all vegetables organic? What changes?” she thought aloud. I digested her ideas, before realizing that we were next in the concession line.
“Vinyl, it’s our turn,” I told her, ushering her towards the patiently waiting mare behind the counter.
“I’ll just get a large soda, please,” she told her, pulling out a few bits from her saddle bags and paying. I stepped forward, purchasing myself a soda and a small popcorn.
“You know what else doesn’t make sense? The price of popcorn. You’d practically have to mortgage your house off to afford anything bigger than a small size,” she added to her growing list of things that didn’t make sense to her. I briefly thought about what she was telling me, before realizing that I had been completely ripped off for the popcorn.
“I guess you’re not entirely wrong, this popcorn cost me six bits alone,” I said to her, prompting a response immediately.
“Exactly! How much do you even think it costs them for that amount of kernels? A quarter of a bit? Hell, probably even less. What a rip off.”
“I guess it’s just a matter of convenience. They know you’re already here, so they know that they can sucker you into buying something completely overpriced,” I rationalized.
We approached the usher, each of us handing him our tickets. He validated them, and pointed us in the direction of our cinema.
“I guess so, but still. What’s the mark-up on a bag of popcorn? It’s gotta be four digits, right?” Vinyl asked me.
“Actually, that wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest,” I responded as we entered the cinema for the showing the Power Ponies movie.
“Whatever. I’ve been waiting for this movie for a long time,” she said, gazing at the few amount of ponies that were already waiting for the movie to start.
“Where do you want to sit?” I asked.
“...dude...is that even a question?”
“At the top?”
“Duh... where do you want to sit...” she said mockingly.
I simply rolled my eyes.