glitches

I am crabby. Petty reasons - I've had a great day. But consumer issues are making me crabby. I just checked my Visa, and the charge for the McCartney ticket is not there. I have actually printed the ticket but the payment has not gone through. This makes my skin prickle. I will call first thing tomorrow. For once, I am anxious, very anxious, to pay.

And - I have been pursuing Cineplex. Anna, Eli and I went to see "Minions" at Cineplex; we tried to buy tickets at the machines, they didn't work, so we lined up and got our tickets from the cashier - $40.48 for the three of us, a hefty fee (this was not Tuesday). When I checked my Visa a few days later, I'd been charged twice. $81 for a senior, an adult and a child to see a film. I made several calls, finally got through to Andrew Johnson (could that be his real name? Maybe he's a robot) who was very polite and said he'd follow through and get in touch. Normally I would not make a fuss about $40.48 - but it seems so unfair to contribute a double portion of my hard-earned cash to Cineplex's vast bottom line.

That was weeks ago. I have emailed Andrew Johnson twice. Nothing.

Okay, first world problems. Here's the pleasure - spent the afternoon with Anna and family. Eli is rangy these days, fierce and demanding. His world has changed and he's testing its limits. But we had sushi for dinner, and his appetite is phenomenal - he ate more than I did, and that's saying something.

And then I walked up Ronces to the Revue for Piers Hemmingsen's event celebrating the 50th anniversary of "Help!" with a showing of a special remastered version. I haven't seen the film for decades, and what fun to sit in a sold out house of Beatle fans. Parts of the film are much as I remembered - all that frantic silly stuff about them being chased gets tired quickly. But the boys themselves are as always fresh, irreverent, natural, terrific. The music is fab gear. And the humour is quite wonderful, full of wit and British satire, things I get much more now as a grown up than I did at 14 in the summer of 1965.

So now with that great music in my head, I will try to relax and go to bed.

If you actually have the ticket, have it printed and put in a very very very safe place, they can't tell you it doesn't exist, can they? So it must just be a glitch that the charge has not gone through. Don't you think?

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