{"id":883,"date":"2007-10-22T23:01:48","date_gmt":"2007-10-23T04:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/womantalk.wordpress.com\/2007\/10\/22\/free-tix\/"},"modified":"2007-10-22T23:01:48","modified_gmt":"2007-10-23T04:01:48","slug":"free-tix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/?p=883","title":{"rendered":"Free Tix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Only a short half hour to when my hubby gets home and we get to watch Heroes together, so a quick post.<br \/>\nThis was a funny weekend for free things.<\/p>\n<p>Friday was Chad&#8217;s day off, so we did our typical run, shower, and get to the Irvine Spectrum for the 10:30 am show of the weekend&#8217;s newest release &#8211; this weekend it was <em><strong>Gone Baby Gone<\/strong><\/em> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0452623\/\" target=\"_blank\">imdb 8.6\/10.0<\/a>). The previous weekend we had forgotten one of our Nalgene water bottles in the theater, and I was hoping against hope that it might be in the lost and found. So I found the manager and very politely asked if he would check the lost and found for me. I knew it was in the large tub under his desk just left of his knee. The manager, Mike, basically stood up tall, crossed his arms and said, &#8220;Sorry, but we have a policy of throwing away all water bottles.&#8221; I pulled out another Nalgene, explained that it cost ten bucks and that possibly somebody might think it non-water bottle enough to put in the lost and found, would he please check?<\/p>\n<p>Nothing doing. Mike just pulled himself taller, crossed his arms tighter, and said. &#8220;Ma&#8217;am even if somebody had put your water bottle in the lost and found, it would have been thrown away after three days.&#8221; Period. He would not bend to lean over and check that damn tub by his knee.<\/p>\n<p>I walked away fuming. &#8220;The dude takes his job waaaay too seriously,&#8221; I muttered to Chad. No way there was anybody organized enough at that theater to be weeding the lost and found for items older than three days. The guy was just a self-righteous jerk who didn&#8217;t want to be bothered.<\/p>\n<p>After the movie, I noticed that somebody else was in the customer service booth, so I ran over and sweetly asked him to plu-eese check the lost and found for my Nalgene, which he did willingly. I mean, all he had to do was flip the lid of a tub which sat not twelve inches away from his right hand.<\/p>\n<p>My Nalgene was sitting right there on top. I never felt so triumphant and smug in my whole life.  and I had to let Mike know about it. Problem was, once I showed Mike the water bottle, he started to say things like, &#8220;Ma&#8217;m, had you made it clear that you wanted me to check the lost and found, I would have been happy to&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Wha?<\/p>\n<p>I snapped. My finger started waggling, and I started out with, &#8220;Why don&#8217;t you start that apology again, but this time without blaming ME?&#8221; and that poor manager began to shake and tremble. I got up on my high and mighty horse and gave that guy a piece of mind &#8211; and by the time Chad dragged me away, the manager was chucking me as many free movie tickets as his nervous fingers could perforate. Well, four at least &#8211; which is not bad considering that a matinee costs nine bucks at this joint.<\/p>\n<p>That was Friday, you know, before I drove up to LA to hang out with my brother.<\/p>\n<p>Then Saturday at the Omni, Corrina and I got back to the hotel (don&#8217;t worry I was finished with the yelling), and the concierge hurried up to me and said, &#8220;Ms. Lee, I&#8217;m so sorry, but there&#8217;s been an accident.&#8221;  My comprehension was slow, but I figured he couldn&#8217;t mean Bella or Chad or any other family member, so how bad could it be? Turned out that he&#8217;d dropped my bag. The bag with a half-full bottle of spiced rum and the snacks.<\/p>\n<p>You know what? This guy was so apologetic and so ready to make amends, there was no need for anger or frustration. I decided to try quiet resignation and no tip. And I still ended up with a complimentary lunch for two at the Omni Hotel.<\/p>\n<p>Not a bad amount of freebies for a weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Only a short half hour to when my hubby gets home and we get to watch Heroes together, so a quick post. This was a funny weekend for free things. Friday was Chad&#8217;s day off, so we did our typical &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/?p=883\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-not-keeping-my-mouth-shut"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}