Ticket-buying faux pas

I didn't miss the start of Chaos Walking last night. In fact, there were still a good 12 minutes of trailers after I got to my seat. I should have figured, but I'm still feeling a bit burned from missing the start of Tenet last year when the feature started playing only two minutes after the time listed on the ticket.

However, due to the clueless behavior of the two people in front of me in the ticket line, I was almost sure I would.

(Please note: This picture is of two innocent customers on the internet, not the people I saw last night.)

Now, I know it takes some people longer than others to complete a transaction that should be relatively straightforward, in any situation involving a queue. Some people have to ask the grocery clerk questions about their groceries. Other people act like this is their first time using an ATM. In fact, I bet many of the same people do both.

But it's especially irksome when their purchase is not time sensitive, but mine is.

I had know way of judging the time sensitivity of their purchase just from watching them. All I knew was that there was a lot of considering of seat options and asking of questions, made all the more a nuisance by the fact that the ticket clerk could not turn his screen in a way that they could see the seating chart, so they had to view it off the reflected surface behind him. That's on Village Cinemas, I would say, for having no way to accommodate the very reasonable request of judging their seats' proximity to the screen. 

But they had also asked him to do things that he could not do, and had to apologize that he couldn't do, which means what they were asking was almost certainly ridiculous. 

As this was dragging along, I ventured some very small outward signs of my impatience, like exhaling audibly and rapping my knuckles on the top of one of the posts that holds the cordons in the ticket line. I didn't care if the customers knew I was annoyed, but I didn't want to piss off the clerk, as I needed my own transaction to proceed quickly, and when you're using your critics card, there's no guarantee of that.

I could tell they were looking at a very small seating chart, meaning it was one of Village's Gold Class screenings, which are twice the price and come with comfy recliners and the option of ordering food. I could see there was a 9:30 Gold Class session of Chaos Walking starting 20 minutes after mine, so I figured they were looking at that. And I was starting to think that might become my own only option for seeing the movie on this particular evening, which would be a lot more than twice the price for me, since my regular screening of the movie is free with my critics card, but the Gold Class screening would be full price.

But no, when they finally came to the end of their extremely protacted -- like, five-minute long, and that was just the time after I arrived -- interface with the clerk, he said, "Okay, two tickets for Sunday at 12:30."

Grr. 

If you aren't even buying tickets for a session that's playing tonight, buy the damn things online, and let me get to my own damn seat please.