I should have known things were going belly-up yesterday when we sat in the movie theatre for 30 minutes, waiting out a 'technical' difficulty ...
Saturday morning, 1130am session at a small, boutique Auckland cinema, excited about seeing 'Hunt for the WIlderpeople' , there we sat, and sat, and sat ... pictures but no sound. My cinema companion was recovering from a head cold and associated hearing loss and she whispered to me, 'There's no sound. right?'
No sound. Silent movie.
It's extraordinary how a group of people can all sit there for fifteen minutes (me included), happily watching trailers, ads and movie with no sound, and nobody says or does anything. Human nature. Finally my companion said, 'I've paid good money to actually hear this movie. I'm going to go and see what is happening.'
She rousted out a theatre representative who said, 'Give us ten minutes' ... then, 'Give us ten minutes more' ... then, 'Sorry we cannot fix the problem, see us for a refund'. Many of the elderly people in the theatre then said 'What? We can't hear you!' but we heard and scuttled out fast to get our money back.
When plans change unexpectedly, it's always interesting to see what eventuates. It's not always good.
We decided to go for a walk at Westhaven Marina, braving wind and rain to peruse the new boardwalk. The walkway was very nice but the weather was not. I spied a bar up ahead in the mist and said, 'Say, let's duck in there for a minute' which we did for a refreshing pilsner and fish and chips. Very warming and nice.
Then we decided to try our luck at another cinema to see the same movie. Hopped into the car, only to find a front tyre going flat. 'Call the AA Roadside Rescue!' said my friend and the AA man arrived within five minutes which was fabulous.
After all of that, we needed another beer so scampered into a tavern only to find half of Auckland had the same idea. We took one look, used the bathroom, and called it a day.
"We came, we peed, we ran," said my friend. I was home by 5pm.