Two days before Christmas, I
decided to go see a matinee of the new “Star Wars” movie. I figured the kids
were still in school, and most people were at work during the afternoon, so the
theater wouldn’t be mobbed.
Once again, I’d figured wrong.
I’m not at all like my friend
Barbara, who loves crowded movie theaters. She says she enjoys the party-like
atmosphere of a bunch of people cheering, screaming, laughing, singing along
with the tunes in the movie and even dancing in the aisles. When I told her I’d prefer it if I were the
only person in the theater, she accused me of being anti-social.
I guess that’s because she’s
probably never experienced the pleasure of sitting in front of someone whose
feet were rammed about shoulder-blade high into the back of her seat all night.
Or she’s never had to endure listening to the guy next to her giving a
blow-by-blow description of the movie’s entire plot because he’s already seen
it six times.
Anyway, I decided I’d be smart
and buy my ticket in advance online so I wouldn’t end up driving all the way
over to the theater only to discover the show was sold out. I was relieved when I was able to get a seat
for the time slot I wanted. Even better, I had a $25 gift card for that
particular theater, so I used it to pay for my ticket. A page showing my name,
the name of the movie, the time it started, and a confirmation number appeared
on my computer screen. The instructions said to print a copy of it and take it
to the theater as proof of my ticket purchase.
The parking lot already was
full when I arrived at the theater a half-hour before the movie was scheduled
to start, which I knew wasn’t a good sign. But, I thought smugly, I already had
my ticket, so I wouldn’t have to stand in any long lines. I could just go right
in and grab a good seat.
Chalk up another wrong
assumption.
“You have to get a ticket for
this,” the ticket taker said to me when I handed him my confirmation slip.
“This isn’t a ticket, it’s an invoice.”
I looked over at the ticket
line. It was so long, people were hanging out of the entrance door. Groaning, I took my place at the end of the
line…outside. As I stood there, I noticed that the majority of the people ahead
of me were men. It made me wonder if they were playing hooky from work. It also
made wonder if their wives knew where they were.
When I finally made it to the
front of the line and gave my confirmation slip to the employee, she looked at
it and said, “Oh, you have to enter your confirmation number in that machine
over there.” She pointed to what looked like an ATM on the other side of the
lobby. “It will give you your ticket.”
I glanced at my watch. The
movie was starting in 15 minutes. I made a beeline for the machine, but two other people beat me to
it. The first man entered his number and apparently had trouble with it because
he tried again…and again…and again. Finally, he gave up and walked off.
The next guy didn’t have any
problem, so he quickly got his ticket, to my relief. I then got up to the
machine and saw on the screen, “Please insert the credit card you used to
purchase your ticket – for verification.”
I hadn’t used a credit card. I’d used a gift card…which was at home, on
the coffee table.
So I tried entering just my
confirmation number. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing.
Frustrated, I returned to the ticket line so I could ask the employee what to
do.
“Oh…you used a gift card,” she
said, frowning. “Well, try entering your confirmation number into the machine
again. Only this time, don’t use the zero in front of it. That’s probably what
you did wrong and why it wasn’t accepted.”
So back to the machine I went,
muttering under my breath. I couldn’t help but wonder why the heck the employee
couldn’t just have given me a ticket, seeing I had a confirmation slip. I mean,
why did I have to keep dealing with a machine when there was a perfectly good
human who could do the same thing a lot faster?
I entered my confirmation
number into the machine – this time, without the zero. Then I waited for my
ticket to pop out. It didn’t. I entered the number again. Still nothing. I
checked my watch. The movie had started.
By then, I have to admit I
wasn’t in the best of moods. In fact, at that moment, it would have given me
great pleasure to set a match to my confirmation slip…and the ticket machine. I
walked over to the ticket taker, who was holding back a huge line of people,
all waiting to get into the next showing of “Star Wars” on a different screen.
“I can’t get my number to work
in the machine,” I whined to him. “And the movie’s already started! Can’t somebody help me?”
“Find the manager,” he said.
“She’s the one with her hair in a bun.”
I rushed off, searching for a
woman with a bun. I soon discovered that most of the female employees in the
theater had their hair pulled back in either ponytails or buns. Just when I was
getting tired of looking at the backs of women’s heads, I noticed a bun-haired
woman near the popcorn machine. I ran over to her.
“Are you the manager?” I asked
her.
She nodded.
I thrust my confirmation slip
at her. “I can’t get this to work, and my movie has already started. I’ve been
here for over a half-hour and I’m getting really, really frustrated.”
She eyed the slip and then
said, “Well, let’s go over to the machine and see what we can do.”
She punched in my number and
the machine immediately spit out my ticket. I felt like giving it a swift kick
for cooperating for her, but not for me. She handed the ticket to me.
“Here you go,” she said.
I thanked her and took it, then
looked at the line – once again out the door.
“My movie started 15 minutes
ago,” I said. “If I have to wait in line with all of these people, I’ll miss
half the movie.”
“I’ll take you to the front of
the line,” she said.
I followed her and gave my
ticket to the ticket taker. I could
feel the eyes of all of the people in line shooting daggers at me. If looks
could have killed, I’m pretty sure I’d be in an urn sitting on someone’s mantel
right now.
Finally, I got into the theater
and grabbed a seat just as the movie’s opening credits were showing. I took a
deep breath, relieved I’d apparently missed only the previews of coming
attractions.
“Wait until you see the cool
new droid in this movie!” the guy behind me said to his buddy. His voice was
loud enough to be heard three rows away. “It’s called BB-8 and it’s carrying a
secret map everybody’s looking for. This is the third time I’ve seen this
movie! It’s really awesome!”
It’s a pity I didn’t bring
Barbara with me.
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