Today I had to go to our local recreation department to purchase tickets for my daughter's ballet recital. This is my daughter's first year in this ballet company. She's spent the past two years with a laid back ballet teacher who taught her beautiful things about the world of dance while the parents sat back and gossiped.
It was a glorious hour for us all. When it came time for the recital, our teacher handed out our tickets, we got as many as we wanted, and the seats were not reserved. This year was a whole new ball game.
I first received a letter from the ballet company telling me that my daughter was performing on the first day of two days of recitals. Tickets were to go on sale today, and this year they would hold a lottery drawing so that it would not be necessary to have parents show up at 6:00 in the morning for a 9:00 AM ticket sales opening. Huh?
The lottery was to begin at 8:45. I arrived at 8:47, and that was only because I was awake. I had initially set my alarm for 9:00, figuring that sleep was more important than a front-row seat. The woman at the door cheerfully informed me that the doors were now closed and that I had "just missed the lottery."
I really wanted to respond with, "Yes, I came late on purpose as I don't play the lottery because I think most of the money that is supposed to be going toward children's education is being mishandled."
But I figured that joke would fall flat, so I smiled and said, "Yes, I see. I do, however, wish to purchase tickets, and I certainly hope that is still a possibility."
To which she responded by handing me a number. The number was 71. So, despite the barren parking lot, there were somehow 70 people ahead of me inside the locked room participating in the lottery.
Listen, people, this is your child's dance recital, not a concert for Toby Keith!
But I had read the letter, so I was prepared, and I sat down in a vacant chair in the corridor and opened the book I had brought with me. Within minutes the closed doors to the lottery room opened and mothers, and one father, began spilling out of the room in two groups: those grumbling about their numbers, the way this was run or their lack of breakfast, and those cheerfully clutching their low numbers and discussing how this process was much better than the year before and where should they go for breakfast in the next few minutes.
Lotto Numbers One, Two, and Three lined up in the purchasing room where Lotto Number One then proceeded to Ticket Lady Number One. Ticket Lady Number One was where LN1 chose her seats from a poorly run off copy of the theater's seating chart. LN1 then moved to Ticket Lady Number Two, where said tickets were tallied into monetary numbers, at which point LN1 then moved to Ticket Lady Number Three, where she turned in her tally and paid her bill, checks and cash only, please.
The lone father looked at me and said, "I figured out that they will probably do if we are lucky, 30 people in one hour at this rate."
Are you kidding me? Do we not live in the age of computers? I can get tickets to see Toby Keith via my computer at home, sitting in my bathrobe and sipping coffee!
But I smiled and continued reading my book, despite the claustrophobic feeling that was creeping inside me as the corridor became jammed with ballet mothers who were not willing to move an inch for other people who were here for recreation classes. I was sure that at some point in time, a brawl would break out, and I would be a police witness. Fortunately, for me, my heroine appeared.
My friend has been a part of this ballet company for two years now. She did not appear at 6:00 AM last year but opted instead for purchasing tickets the following week. She ended up way in the back where she sort of recognized her daughter's face, but she countered this by buying the video the company sells of the ballet performance, please do not bring your own video recorder as it will not be allowed in the theater.
She had arrived today at 8:30 AM and was a part of the lottery where she picked the number 8. I did a remarkable job covering up my hatred for her at that particular moment, as having a friend with the number 8 was not going to help me any as the company had limited our purchases to a total of 8 tickets, thus once more fixing a complaint from last year where those 6:00 AM mothers then proceeded to purchase 1,000 tickets for several other ballet families who were still home in bed.
However, my friend, while standing in line behind Lotto Numbers 5, 6, and 7, heard Lotto Numbers 4 and 5 purchasing 8 tickets for the Saturday performance and 8 tickets for the Sunday performance! It seems that some children perform in both recitals, no proof necessary.
She then inched her way into the corridor, whispered in my ear how many tickets did I need, thankfully ignored my loudly grumbling of "it doesn't matter that I need 6 tickets because you need 8 and we are on different days, and they aren't going to let you buy those tickets for me anyhow", and purchased my 6 tickets when her number was called, 4 rows behind the orchestra pit, thank you very much.
Guess who I'll be taking with me to the Toby Keith Concert on August 6th? Yep. Cheryl.
No comments:
Post a Comment