Recently, my wife and I went to see Kinky Boots at a local theatre. As with any performance, we wanted good seats with an unobstructed view; like the views you would imagine from front row seats at the Colosseum of Rome.
We've had to deal with women seated ahead of us with sky-high beehive hairdos or wearing hats more suited for the Kentucky Derby. Or we have those seated behind us who talk as if they're enjoying an evening with guests in their sound-proof living rooms. Then there are the ones who laugh at the most inappropriate moments:
"O, never shall sun that morrow see!" says Lady MacBeth.
"HA HA HA!" says the guy behind me.
I'm reminded of the time my wife and I went to the movies to see Woody Allen's Interiors; a grim, plodding, Bergman-like drama. However, there was a woman in the crowd who laughed throughout most of the film. She was likely thinking, "Dammit! I paid good money to see a Woody Allen movie, so I'm going to have my chuckles. Funny or not."
Anyway, back to the theatre and Kinky Boots. I ordered our tickets online, and chose seats via a map that showed what was available for a particular performance. I saw two seats in the second row. However, it appeared as if there were no seats in front of them since there was a recessed area I took for the orchestra pit. Great! I called the box office and reserved them.
When we got to the theatre, the ushers asked where we were seated. There was at least one usher every five rows or so, mostly elderly pint-sized women. "Don't bother", I bellowed, "I know where I'm seated. Right up front!" With a swaggering strut, I made my way down to the front row, wearing a look so smug you'd think I owned the damned place.
My wife, on the other hand, seemed a bit confused. She started making her way back toward the least desirable seats in the house. "What the heck is she doing?" I said to the little old lady usher at my elbow. "Why is she way back there?"
So, I trudged over to my spouse who informed me that our seats were P22 and P23. "Yes," I explained, "right up front, like I chose." Actually, I don't know what the devil I was thinking when I selected seats in row "P". I do recall thinking at the time that it was a strange seating label, like some sort of reverse derriere designator. "P" up front, standing for "Perfect", or at least "Pretty good seats" and "A" as in "Awful" or "Are there binoculars that come with the seats for us laggard losers in the back?"
I looked at our tickets, which were masterfully produced by our HP printer, and then at the row designation, which was clearly marked "P".
"What? I can't believe it. I distinctly remember selecting front row!" Those little old lady ushers seemed to be much larger now as I could feel myself starting to shrink in stature and self-importance.
Befuddled, baffled and bewildered, I made my way back to the car where I'd left my cell phone to check the email confirming my purchase. "Yup. It sure is row P", I muttered to myself. So, I checked the theatre web site to see what I had done wrong. I found out.
The map of the theatre showing its layout has the diagram oriented as you might expect with the stage at the top of the page and the entrance into the theatre at the bottom. Once you go to buy tickets however, the diagram is flipped over, with the stage at the bottom and the entrance at the top! I thundered, "No wonder I blundered." By the way, that recessed area that I mistook for the orchestra pit was the area for the sound technicians and their soundboard.
I can just picture me, an old coot sitting there hearing the clicks and clacks of their work while blinking my tired old eyes, straining to see what was going on up there on stage. It appeared as if it was going to be a long miserable night. Fortunately it didn't come to that.
While griping and complaining on my way back to the theatre from my car, a lovely young woman (perhaps the senior seating manager) heard my grumbling. She snatched the tickets from my hand. Then brandishing her senior seating manager pen, changed the seating designations to fifth row, thus saving the day. She likely just did it to shut me up so I wouldn't spoil the evening for the rest of the patrons.
So how was Kinky Boots? Well, there were no big hats or high-rise hairdos in front of us, and we had relatively quiet folks behind us. And the show was good. However, during some of the slow ballads, I was wishing I was seated in the back row to have a good snooze.
Finally, on a different note, I wanted to mention that a blogging and podcast database website known as FeedSpot has the blog of yours truly listed on their Top 100 Humor Blogs for 2023. I must admit, I was somewhat taken aback when I first learned this.
However, it should be noted that the good people at FeedSpot apparently really know a good blog when they read one. But seriously, it is an unexpected honor. Thank you FeedSpot.
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