...was getting tickets to Cirque du Soleil.

My daughter L ordered them weeks ago.  Was told they'd be sent out Real Soon Now.

When time was growing short and they weren't appearing, L emailed and phoned, leaving messages with machines...who didn't deign to reply.

Two days before the performance, for which we were travelling to Toronto, train and hotel easily booked with print-outs for confirmation, she finally got thru to someone.  "You have a box number - UPS doesn't deliver to box numbers."  Shriek.  YOU DIDN'T NOTICE AND GET BACK TO US?

And who delivers paper tickets by UPS anyway? From FLORIDA, to Ontario for a performance in Ontario?!

Not these guys - despite promises.  It was 30 hours or so before we were to leave and no UPS was appearing.  The e-tickets promised as a last-minute substitute were not showing up on email.  Another phone call - this time a supervisor answered, and was apologetic - computer probs at their end.  And half an hour or so before we were due to leave the house, the e-tickets appeared in the email.  I had, with some trepidation, earlier in the day hooked up my brand-new printer, which, despite new-fangled innovations like a teensy keyboard on the front in which to type in my computer password (please god, let it be what I remember) and some other weird shit, got hooked up relatively easily.  And, hey, I like this wi-fi business:  no cord to the computer to add to the tangle back there.

The ticket people said, since UPS hadn't got to our place before we left, the physical tickets would be sent to our hotel.  No, of course not - they didn't arrive.  But of course our e-tickets, the reasonable vehicle for these internet days, got us in, no prob.

Actually, printed-out e-tickets are desperately old-fashioned.  Up-to-date people just show their cell-phone screens.

Anyway, we very much enjoyed the performance.

And had interesting things to eat.

P.S. - While whining, let me note that I left us plenty of time to get to the train station in a town 3/4 hour away, with some extra for dropping off the dogs.  Drove casually to the town in question, stopped at a coffee shop to pick up a smoothie and bagel for the train, and cruised a couple blocks to the train station.

Huh!  There were a lot of posters up for performances.  Performances?  Okay, this very large old train station, now serving a much reduced clientele and using just a room at the far end, was giving over the larger portion of itself to local theatre - nice.

Oh wait a minute - there was no train stop here any more.  SHRIEK.  Hastily noted directions to new stop.  And anyway, just follow the train-tracks, right?  Less than 15 minutes before train due!  Tear down street - dead-end.  Zip over to adjacent street - open window and yell at passerby. Okay, we're to go down that other street, go under the underpass, go north a bit.  Did that, no new train station in sight.  Stop at restaurant, rush in, get instructions from waitress.  We should be able to see it from here.  Couldn't see, but carried on ---- and there it was.  Tiny new li'l station. Whew.  Five minutes to spare.  

And then the train was half an hour late...

ENJOYED CIRQUE THO!  And our hotel in Chinatown.

OKAY PEOPLE, CAN'T CONJURE UP OS's PICTURE FUNCTION.  WILL CROSS-POST, W. PIX, TO OUR SALON.