“GRR.”
A single grunt. I look up from A Feast for Crows, my latest fiction read. My partner’s brow is furrowed, his teeth clenched in frustration. He’s hunched over his phone, attempting to make the less-than-adequate website of a major cinema chain take our money for advance Dune: Part Two tickets.
“AARGH.”
I can tell it’s not going well. But I hate being disturbed when trying to make an online payment, so despite dying to know what the problem is, I don’t ask. Instead, I turn my attention back to Westeros and wait for my partner’s battle with CGV to play out next to me on the couch.
Forty minutes later, my partner lets out another exasperated sigh and puts down his phone. The battle, it seems, is lost.
As he begins to recount the numerous issues with the website that have resulted in us not having tickets for Dune—a movie we’re both dying to see—for opening weekend, I’m struck by a bolt of inspiration.
“Why don’t I go to the cinema tomorrow and buy our tickets?” I blurt out. The cinema is a 15-minute cab journey if there’s no traffic, and tomorrow is a Sunday.
“You’d do that?” My partner’s face lights up. “I mean, that’d be great!”
Without thinking, I nod. My partner smiles, forty minutes of frustration fading from the familiar lines of his face.
That settles it. I’m going to town tomorrow.
My trip to the cinema
The next morning, I wake up just after 8am and immediately regret my previous evening’s bout of generosity. Saturday had been busy, and I was looking forward to a Sunday spent reading on our couch, disappearing into George R. R. Martin’s epic tale and not doing much else.
But a promise is a promise, getting to see Dune on opening weekend is a more-than-worthy reward, and we’re out of refrigerated coffee so I need to grind beans and brew fresh coffee for my morning caffeine fix (too much effort), so I get dressed.
“You’re leaving already?” My partner’s eyes flutter open. The noise I made getting ready must have woken him up. “I thought you were going later?”
“We’re out of coffee, so I’ll go now and have my morning coffee at the mall.” Plus if I don’t leave now, I’m very likely to change my mind and not go at all, I don’t add.
“Cool, thanks,” my partner mumbles, half-asleep. I give him a kiss, grab the last few items I need, then close the bedroom door behind me.
Dressed and desperate for my coffee fix, I wait impatiently for my ride-hailing app to find me a cab. There aren’t a lot of drivers out on a Sunday morning, and so it takes a while before my booking is accepted. Then I discover, to my dismay, that my driver happens to be one of those who can’t read a map to save their life. I’m half-amused, half-exasperated as I watch the tiny dot that is his car on my phone screen edge further and further away from the pin marking my location, as my driver makes one wrong turn after another on his way to pick me up.
Eventually, he makes it to my apartment. I get in, stop my polite-but-incompetent driver from making yet another wrong turn, and we’re off. Fortunately, apart from a close call at an intersection that would have taken us to the wrong part of town, our journey is without further navigational incident, and 20 minutes later I arrive at the mall where the cinema is.
I look at my watch—almost 9am. I can either go to Starbucks and get my much-needed coffee fix now or go see what time the cinema will start selling tickets first. Dutiful partner that I am, I opt for the latter.
We’ve been to this cinema for early-morning showings before, so I easily find my way into the still-closed mall and down to the underground level where the CGV is located. I arrive to find the cinema brightly lit though today’s first screening isn’t until 9:50am—a good sign.
The sales terminals are still closed, but I spy a staff member by the popcorn machine and approach him with my question: What time do you start selling tickets? 9:30am, he replies in perfect English. Can I buy tickets for next weekend? Yes, he confirms. Excellent.
With half an hour to kill, I decide to finally go get my coffee. I’d spied a juice stand with an espresso machine by the escalator. Not ideal, but it’ll do. I order my hot Americano and spend the next ten minutes waiting for my coffee.
At 9:15am, I arrive back at CGV with an Americano that’s far too hot than any coffee has a right to be and find… everyone who was waiting to buy tickets fifteen minutes ago is gone, and look… a woman who must have arrived after me is buying a ticket!!
In typical Vietnamese fashion, after telling me to come back for tickets at 9:30am, the staff inexplicably starts selling them as soon as I leave for coffee. I know it’s not out of spite, but the inconsistency still puts me in a sour mood that persists even after securing excellent seats for next Saturday’s IMAX showing of Dune.
Great, now I’m stuck with a shitty Americano that’s too hot even to hold, not to mention drink. To think I could have bought the tickets straight away and I’d now be at Starbucks drinking my coffee, having a croissant, and reading my book!
I sit down to brood in the cinema’s waiting area, nursing my hot Americano that I’m afraid to drink lest I scald my intestinal tract. Then I have an idea…
Making lemonade
That idea was a Belgian brewery close to home that I knew served coffee and breakfast in the mornings. I’d been meaning to go for months, but the occasion never arose. It’s arisen now. I dump my hot Americano, call a cab, and thirty minutes later I’m savouring my double flat white while waiting for my breakfast tortilla (the omelette kind).
I ended up having a grand time. The flat white was excellent, the tortilla exquisite, and afterwards I ordered a hot ginger tea to slowly sip while I devoured page after page of fictional brilliance. I read until I was sated, then on my walk home stopped for a croissant at a newly-opened French bakery, just for good measure.
It was a wonderful way to spend half my Sunday, and it wouldn’t have happened if a) the CGV website hadn’t been so shit it couldn’t process a simple transaction and b) I hadn’t wasted my money on that scalding Americano that I binned. I would never have left the house that Sunday morning or been so pissed off/desperate for good coffee that I birthed the brewery idea.
Life’s funny that way. It pelts you with lemons. And it’s up to you whether you scream blue murder (what kind of major cinema website doesn’t [expletive] allow online ticket purchases!?!) or roll with it and, as they say, make lemonade.
Is it inconvenient and costly to cab all the way into town to buy movie tickets one week before the screening? Yes. Is it ridiculous you still have to do this in the year 2024? Absolutely. How frustrating is it to end up with a shitty, scalding coffee you neither need nor want? Very. But you can always choose to make the most of a mediocre situation.
That’s what I did last Sunday, and the results, quite simply, blew me away.
What do you think?
Do I always make lemonade out of life’s shitty lemons? No. But I’m sure proud of myself every time I do.
When life gives you lemons, do you make lemonade?
When was the last time life assailed you with lemons? Did you raise your first to the sky and decry the injustice of it all, or did you get squeezing? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this with someone who doesn’t pelt you with lemons.
Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,
Val
Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash