So Much for Date Night

It was a night that just didn’t turn out as planned. I bought tickets a while ago for a tribute show marking 10 years since the death of George Harrison.   The band, The McCartney Years, is terrific.  They’re fronted by a wonderful singer and guitarist who’s an acquaintance of mine.  So we decided to go downtown for dinner before the show on Saturday night.  Doors opened at 6:30, showtime was 7 pm.

Dinner at Crabby Joe’s was a little slower than we anticipated but it was excellent.  I had a grilled veggie and goat cheese wrap that was also baked!  It may have been the best wrap I’ve ever eaten but I could only finish half of it.  Our server was having a busy night but she was efficient – too efficient. When she came to take our plates, her chatter and fast exit prevented me from asking her to wrap my wrap but I thought, hey, that’s going to be obvious, right?  Not right.  When she came back she had thrown it away!  A perfect, delicious half wrap alone on the plate went into the garbage.  Damn.  Before we left I noticed the manager by the door.  She had come over to the table earlier to see if things were good.  I told her our waitress was really nice but that she had thrown out tomorrow’s lunch.  “Oh sorry”, she said.  “I’ll have a word with her.  She really should have asked you if you wanted it wrapped.”  Yeah, I know.  No raincheck.  No freebie.  Just, hey, that’s a wrap.

Anyway, on to the show we went.  It was being held in a tiny club in a converted old house called The London Music Club.  It has three rooms for acts that draw varying sizes of crowds and we had attended a show by our friend Kevin Bulmer in one of the rooms earlier in the year.   It books some very good acts.  Garnet Rogers is playing there in December.  We arrived about 5 minutes to showtime and as soon as we got to the door I knew we were in trouble.  The room was packed and there appeared to be one stool available.  We were watched by a sea of smug we-have-a-place-to-sit faces as we handed over our tickets and got our hands stamped.  A woman behind me asked, “did you try those seats in the middle?”  There were a couple of chairs with their backs facing the stage but the scarves and coats on them told the tale – they were being held.  (This was confirmed when the woman and her friends came back out of the room behind us.)  Yes, we left.  The Club’s website was down but I finally sent a note off to the owners.  I’ll report back on what they say.  In the meantime, my lead singer pal offered to reimburse us out of his own pocket which I completely refused.  It’s not his fault and it’s not a reflection on the band.  It’s also not his situation to make right.

My idea of a good time does not include standing my chiropractic-friendly back on my aching feet all evening squished in with people I don’t know.  If I enjoyed that I’d be shopping at Walmart on Saturday afternoons.  We were both in agreement that this was not what we signed up for.  So we went grocery shopping instead.  I’m happy we didn’t stay even though I know we missed some great music and may as well have torn up twenty dollar bills and tossed them into the wind.