Refunded Ticket

MORNING OF JANUARY 18, 2010

I went to see a matinee of a fictional animated movie at a local cinema. The actual theater the film was showing in was a very small room with blue walls and dim, bluish lighting. At the front of the room sat large array of old, analog TV sets of various sizes. The seating in the room consisted solely of metal folding chairs, most of which were filled with other patrons.

When the movie started, it played on all of the analog TVs simultaneously. I sat there wondering why it wasn't playing on a big movie screen, and decided I was pretty upset that I'd paid full price for a ticket to come watch a movie on crappy analog TVs (the only sound was emitting from the mono speakers of all the TV sets as well).

I went back into the lobby to ask for a refund, but now the lobby looked like some kind of wild frat house atmosphere. I pushed my way through the crowd of drunken revelers to the customer service desk, which took some time to locate. The guy working at it was the actor, Justin Long ("Mac Guy"!). He wasn't helpful.

I got so frustrated with the lack of help that I gave up and left the theater. It was dusk outside, and as I approached my car in the parking lot I became indignant and decided to go back inside and demand my ten dollars back!

Once inside again, I did eventually find someone who would help me. Instead of a cash refund, they gave me a sticker that was redeemable for a free ticket on my next visit. The sticker looked like one of those "Hello, my name is..." stickers. There was a code on it which I had to validate online.

When I was getting into my car after this event, I suddenly looked back at the theater and surrounding strip mall and saw all the power went out! By the time I was actually driving away I saw it all flickering back on again.

There was one other dream I can only barely remember in which Eric had bought tickets for several of us to attend some conference about UFO abductions and such. I thought it was fascinating as something weird,but he seemed to actually be believing it all.