Hello movie theatre employee, do you have the audio description headsets? Oh, they're around someplace. No, not subtitles, that's for deaf people. You know, the headsets?

Okay, that's the thing. Crikey, that was a lot of dust you just blew off them. Cough, cough. Let's try one on. Hmm, I don't think this one is working, it doesn't even hiss when I turn up the volume. What do you mean, it shouldn't work out here? I know, but... well, OK, let's go in. Hmm, still nothing. Let's try another one. Are you sure these ones are left plugged in to charge up? Okay this one seems to be working. I can hear something. It sounds like the German dialogue track. Maybe there's a setup problem somewhere.

Tell you what, I'll just have my friend here whisper in my ear at key points, and if anyone complains, we'll refer them to you.

Haven't been to a theater since before the pandemic, but it was always a crapshoot. Either the workers didn't know the difference between audio descriptive modes and the hard-of-hearing modes which just amplified the movie volume, or they'd set it to the wrong frequency so the device would remain silent when the movie started, or they'd give me an uncharged device which would die or be dead as soon as the movie started, and my sighted wife would miss the first 10 minutes of each movie since she'd have to run back to customer service to get them to fix it. We've received so many free passes to movies because they never keep the devices maintained, and it just gets frustrating after having made the effort to get out and about to the theater, grab concessions and such, only to have to leave or wait several hours for another showing when they finally have the audio description devices working.

Some US movie houses like AMC have gotten better about this since they've been sued by disability rights advocates, but it's not universal nor consistent across all theater houses, and smaller boutique cinemas also may or may not have devices at all. As an absolute movie buff and nerd from before losing my vision, the struggles of being able to have equitable access to the movie-going experience has been nothing but disheartening.

Ours have been locked down most of the pandemic,so my wife has been exploring lesser known titles on Netflix and Disney plus.