Chasing Harry

Last weekend Larry and tried to see Goblet of Fire. His mom called earlier in the week and wanted to know if she and her husband could pop down for the weekend. She had found an absurdly low airfare and they had nothing going on. We happily agreed. We always enjoy Grandma and Grandpa’s visits and they could watch the kids while we go to the movies. Originally Meryl was going to watch them, but she has been a bit under the weather and it would probably be best for her to stay home and recover a bit longer.

The plan was that they would be arriving around 2:30 pm on Saturday and leave Monday morning. It would be one of their classic quick visits. If I could, I would drop off the dogs at the kennel in the morning, Grandpa has asthma and dogs are one of his triggers. He is OK when they are not around and the dogs are not allowed upstairs (so it is relatively allergen free), but it is a bit much when the dogs are underfoot. Then that evening Larry and I would go see the 7:00 pm showing of The Goblet of Fire at the IMAX Theater in Richmond. Sunday would be spent shuttling the boys to Sunday school and Nate to his soccer game with the evening spent watching football.

It was a grand and glorious plan.

Prudently (at least I thought so) I decided to hold off buying tickets for the movie until my in-laws arrived. Bad weather, missed fights and illness could foul up our plans. At a little before four I logged onto the Science Museum’s website to buy the tickets. It would not work. I tried all sorts of tricks and the web site kept blowing me off with a generic error message. After about 15 minutes of that I then called the box office directly. It was open until 5:00 pm, but I was continually shunted to the answering service. At about 4:55 pm I left a message and gave up.

At this point y’all know what is going on, however hope springs eternal in our hearts and we decided to press on.

We had a nice early dinner of pasta with a homemade sauce and dinner rolls. I had some bison burger in the freezer and used it to good effect in the sauce. By 6:15 Larry and I were on the road. We made the theater in good time, but the parking lot was jammed. After a bit of cruising about we found a spot. At this point we were very concerned about the movie being sold out. The full lot was not a good sign, but we got out and made our way to the theater. I decided to bring my jacket even though it was downright hot out. As we reached the doors we heard one couple mention that it was sold out. With a sigh we went inside.

It was sold out. Again.

At this point I felt like my life was a bad episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show (scroll down to the reviews). It was like one of her dinner parties which are always destined to fail. All I wanted was to see the movie on the big screen, but it just never seems to work out.

We spoke with the folks manning the desk and it turns out that the movie had sold out by 2:00 pm. That was why the web site was behaving so strangely, I was trying to buy the tickets two hours too late.

Then as a capper to our evening the skies opened up with a drenching downpour as we returned to the car. Larry sprinted ahead and I smugly put on my coat. Ha! I had justified dragging the dang thing along with me. We then cruised a bit in the car, considered going to the Krispy Kreme (the hot light was on) and then settled at a restaurant for beer & snacks before heading home. At least it wasn’t a complete wash.

Sigh.

Well we are going to try again. Next weekend our schedules and Meryl’s coordinate for the Sunday afternoon show. This should work. I already have bought the tickets.