Theater Madness and the Attack of the Flying Ants

So Friday evening Amitha and I went to the theater. I'd like to say it was an enjoyable evening, but it was not. I can't comment on the play because I didn't see it, but if the management of the theater is any indication, I'm sure it sucked.

See the tickets say you have to be on time because they close the doors at 7:30. When we arrived a man was in the courtyard hustling people upstairs because the doors were about to close. As we neared the auditorium (which I might add, is not obviously located or close to the entrance of the facility) the woman at the ticket booth suggested we hurry. I checked my watch, two minutes to spare, but alas the doors were shut. We were not the only ones caught in this time warp. There were about 15 of us outside the door. I mentioned to the usher that there was still time, but she lied and said the doors were locked from the inside.

Here is the problem with this scenario. Anyone who has ever worked in a theater has heard the myriad of stories associated with fires in theaters, and well, you just don't lock the patrons in. I knew the doors were not locked. I don't like being lied to and I don't like loosing money. This just meant I couldn't believe another word out of her mouth. Then Amitha asked why a guy was sent to collect people if the doors were going to be shut before his return. Then the guy in question began saying he was telling us the doors were closed! I'm actually quite fluent in English and my short term memory is still intact, thank you, so I'm not sure what he thought he'd get away with by making this statement. Amitha and I were really the only ones complaining and I'm sure if we hadn't been there the mob would have eventually left and not worried about loosing the ticket price. Once we started going, though, the others chimed in.

At some point, with 15 of us talking, we created a bit of noise. An usher inside opened the door to tell us to be quiet. Obviously she wasn't thinking because 1) this told us the doors were absolutely not locked, and 2) the door is now open and we know we have some power. Amitha and I stood in the door and the male usher (the one who lied about collecting people) actually tried to push Amitha away! I couldn't believe it and when she reprimanded him for touching her he began to say, "If you were a lady..." I cut him off and told him that he better walk away right now.

Finally, after 25 minutes of complaining, we were given our money back. I will be writing a letter to the theater manager. This is not the way to run a theater. The usher at some point mentioned they didn't have this problem the night before and I said they probably didn't close the doors early. Amitha said the theater didn't seat more than 200 people, so 15 of us in the hallway was a significant portion of their audience (and it was not sold out).

The lesson here is to not bother with shows where the ticket is more than 500 rupees. Amitha has been here almost two years and these were the most expensive tickets she has ever purchased and she has never been treated so poorly. I'm still in shock.

Of course, we were quite wired by then, so we went to get a drink and calm ourselves. This clearly didn't help as I'm still irritated by the entire situation (two days later).

Saturday I woke up bright and early for photo class. It had been raining, but it stopped when I woke up, so I figured I'd attempt the ride into town. We were to have a field trip to take portraits in the park. About 20 minutes out of the house the heavens opened up. So I turned back figuring I can't take photos when it is raining so hard. By the time I got back to the house (not soaked thanks to Lorili's poncho) I had a text message that class was canceled. So I went back to bed.

I spent the day lazing about. I need to develop photos for class, so I spent a crazy amount of time preparing pictures (adding borders, etc.). Then I went to town to have dinner with Amitha and Lisa. Lisa is in town to get her stitches out (arm), but she recently hurt her foot so we ordered dinner in. You can get Indian food delivered in Colombo!

I got home around 11 and walked into my room ready for a relaxing read before falling asleep. Unfortunately a calm evening was not in the cards. My room was infested with flying ants. I've never seen so many. We had a few around the house, but now there were at least 100 in my room. So I spent more than an hour killing them. Luckily they are slow and they can't fly far, so I walked around with tissue and smashed them. I didn't sleep well because there were in my bed and even though I had killed them all, I had mental bugs crawling on me all night.

Luckily they haven't returned. I'm hoping news of the massacre has made it to where ever they actually live and the rest of the ants know to avoid my space.