(I am a box office manager at a local theater. There are several bathrooms immediately off the box office and several more around the corner, down the hall, and through another room. We only open these extra bathrooms up during intermission. Before the show, we keep the door to that room locked, but the door only locks from the inside, so it’s like a lobster trap: you can get in, but you can’t get out. A woman approaches me during an extremely busy night before the show starts.)
Woman: “I want to use the other bathrooms.”
Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t open them until intermission.”
Woman: “But you had them open before, didn’t you?”
Me: “Yes, ma’am. During intermission. It is not intermission. However, you can use the box office bathrooms, which don’t have a line right now.”
(The woman sulks off. Twenty minutes go by, in which I am dealing with too many customers to see what she does. During a brief lull, I hear a faint pounding from deep inside the building. I tell my assistant to go check it out. The woman comes rushing into the box office, flustered and out of breath.)
Woman: “Did you know I was locked into that room? I could’ve been there for the entire show, for all you know!”
Me: “Ma’am, I told you those bathrooms were off-limits before the show. I’m sorry you were locked in, though.”
Woman: *losing her cool* “But they were open before the show this one time last year!”
Me: “Yes. It is no longer last year.”
Woman: “Well! That’s absurd!”
(She stormed out.)
