And the man said “$35.00 per ticket and I couldn’t take less!
This was the “scalper of
tickets” in front of the
theater
where my lady friend and I anticipated spending a glorious New Years Eve.
“That sounds like a good deal, even though one ticket is in the mezzanine and the other the balcony” I replied. I was about to remove some money from my wallet, (which always is very light because this is not the favorite hangout of either George, Abe, Tom, Andy or that ever evasive Ben) and hand it to him , when we were swept away by the crowd.
I was extremely disappointed that we were unable to complete our transaction.
As the distance between ourselves and the “
scalper” became greater, I became desperate and yelled “Help!!”. This ultimate act of desperation had little effect on the crowd as they swept us along to the ticket counter.
“ How much for two tickets, together, in the mezzanine?" I uttered those words with a sense of pride, as I was becoming an experienced
theater go-er.
“ That will be $35.00 per ticket”
For an inexplicable reason my face acquired an amber complexion at that moment.
Handing her the money in exchange for two tickets, we were again merrily swept along, only this time to the ticket taker.
When we arrived at the lobby, my mate wanted to use the restroom and I didn’t, so I waited for her in the designated “meet you here” area.
As I waited there were two things that entered my mind 1) that the scalper either had to have his integrity questioned or was acting as a “nice guy” by saving us the effort of walking those few extra steps to the ticket counter and 2) the crowd was fairly young in age, which led me to again question our melancholy celebration of New Year’s Eve.
When we were finally seated we were both filled with anticipation awaiting that moment when the band would start playing.
The audience displayed a great amount of patience as the stage was prepared for the musicians entrance.
I knew we were in trouble when the band made their entrance. For to our amazement and amusement, one player was very fat with his baseball cap on so that it couldn’t shield his eyes from the bright lights. Finally, instrument play commenced and while it was exceptional music, it was loud beyond belief and definately out of our league.
The music did not affect either my wife or I this way, but it actually must have been nanoparticles generating super sonic sound waves and had a mesmerizing effect.
For the young couple in front of us stood up and began to shake all over and emit sporadic yelps. They also gave us the impression of being in immense pain.
We rushed forward to see if we could help, but the music stopped and so did they.
On our way back to our seats I inadvertently kicked her drink into his popcorn. To me he issued words that did not meet with my approval. I rebutted with “look, we only came to help and in addition have assumed the responsibility to make you some popacola. ( That’s popcorn mixed with Coca-cola.)
Nevertheless, there were two acts. Over a very loud flow of notes, I said to my wife “Either the next act is more acceptable, or we are history.”
“No” said my wife, “you are terribly mistaken
, we are Mr. and Mrs. C., whether the next act
is acceptable or not
”. While trying to evade an argument, we discovered that the next act played the same kind of music.
It also became apparent that the target market for this style music was not us.
So we promptly headed for the exit.
On the journey I ran into a theater attendant who was slightly older. As our paths crossed,
I yelled over very loud background music, “ so you too enjoy this soothing music?”
Not receiving a reply, we assumed that this man had gone deaf listening to this music.
We also noticed a great number of balloons suspended from the ceiling. Which at the be-witching hour would be released. And as it was 11:45PM, I realized that I had once again timed our exit to perfection.
We then headed for favorite restaurant with the anticipation of a great meal. However, in that it was officially New Year's Day the restaurant was closed.
With the combination of events, I suddenly became aware that our trip home would be drenched in silence.
Perhaps, in writing this article we are guilty of committing the biggest sin, and that is we have forgotten to say "may the forthcoming year be one in which many blessings are showered on you.i.e., Happy New Year."