First Date

It has been a long time since I had a first date, well last Tuesday night I guess I had one. Yes, my husband and I have been together almost 10 years now but last Tuesday night was a first date. First time we had a real babysitter (non family or friend) come over and watch Eli while the two of us went out.

One of our neighbor's daughters is home from college right now. She is trustworthy, nice, and an experienced babysitter. We decided before she goes back to college, it is time to take advantage of her being so close by.

I have been wanting to see Sex and the City for a long time now and there is a brand new, nicely built, AMC theater close by.

Our babysitter came over after work. We quickly showed her around, gave her instructions, kissed Eli and left so we could make the movie on time. Lowell dropped me off at the front since 1. it was poring and 2. the movie started soon and we needed to buy tickets.

Well, the power had just gone off and the manager was locking the doors so no one could go inside. I luckily made it inside on time and convinced the manager to let Lowell in as well. It was thundering and lightening outside and the line to buy tickets (outside) was growing and growing. (I am not sure what movie is worth almost getting struck by lightening but apparently one is to many people.)

Within 10 minutes the lights had come back on but AMC could not start any of the movies. In order to restart a projector, their help desk office has to start them. Lowell and I were by the customer service desk waiting to buy tickets for Sex and the City and witnessed the struggles that this theater went through to get their projectors started. The manager called their customer service, was on hold for over 15 minutes and then was hung up on. This happened twice. She tried to send customer service an e-mail, and the e-mail came back. Lowell and I found this quite comical (don't know why, but we did). Throughout the time it took AMC to get their projectors started (about an hour), various customers (whose movies were interrupted during the power failure) came up to customer service asking for refunds. I was surprised that not one customer was angry that they were sitting in the theater for so long with power but no movie and no communication from AMC.

AMC is not allowed to put a notice on their windows so they could not write a note stating that they are not selling tickets at this time so the line outside grew and the manager had to pop outside every few minutes to tell people what was going on. AMC never communicated with the people inside about what was going on so they did not know when their movies would start.

Finally, AMC got the projectors working. (5 minutes before the time that Lowell and I were going to leave) They cancelled several of the showing. I begged the manager to continue to show SATC. I said we had to pay the babysitter either way. The manager said they would still play SATC. Lowell and I still had to buy tickets but they were starting the movie and I HATE missing the beginning. The customer service rep said to just enjoy the show! Awesome. A $20 dollar savings for the evening. Movie tickets at this theater are $10 each! I could not believe it when I saw the prices but at least tonight we got a little break. (We just had to wait an hour for it!)