Old People Out on the Town

 

Last Saturday my sister Peggy and her husband Rick, took me out for dinner and a show. The show was Paula Poundstone, a very funny comedian. On the way over to the theater Rick asked Peggy if she had the tickets.

"Of course I do. They're on my phone."

The future is here. A paperless future that some of us are not ready for. So we get to the theater and stand in line at the door. There is a guy at the door scanning tickets. Some have paper tickets, but most show him their phone and he scans the screen. I notice that Peggy has her phone in her hand and is poking at it.

"Where the hell are those tickets? I had them pulled up before I left the house."

Poke, poke, poke, poketty, poke, poke.....  Meanwhile folks are going around us as my sister desperately tries to find the tickets on her phone. Poke, poke, poke, poketty, poke... The lobby crowd has thinned and a voice booms out.

 "Fifteen minutes to curtain."

Peggy is still poking at her phone while Rick and I look over her shoulder, giving suggestions.

"Ah, here they are!" Peggy shouts and the man with the scanner lets us in. We walk about fifteen feet and there is lady steering people to the correct theater sections. She asks my sister for our seat numbers and section.

"Seats one, two and three, in row D."

"Fine ma'am, but I need the section too."

Peggy pulls out her phone again, "Sure, I have it right here.....   Damn, I just had it pulled up on the screen a minute ago." More poking at the screen. Poke, poke, poketty, poke... The big voice booms out again.

"Five minutes to curtain."

Finally, Peggy pulls up the tickets and the lady sends us down to door one where another young lady is standing and asking for seat numbers. This time Peggy has not put the phone away.

Paula Poundstone was very entertaining and funny, but I always thought of her as a young person's comedian. Hip and edgy. But I suppose I'm just getting old, because I would guess the average age of the audience to be somewhere around eighty years old. There was a serious possibility that somebody could literally die laughing.