I wish to see a film, but my wife wants me to take the eldest and an unspecified number of his friends. They're watching football and failing to reach a decision, while I sit at my computer staring at a plan of the cinema. Each time I hit Refresh, more available seats disappear. It's as if I'm bidding at an internet auction on behalf of a clutch of capricious princelings. I go downstairs.
"Any progress here?" I say.
"Dunno," the eldest one says.
"Do I want to see a film?" one of his friends says.
"I should call my mum," says another.
"That might be an idea," I say, concealing my whitening knuckles.
Eventually, it is determined that only one friend will delight us with his company. By then we are not officially late, but we've eaten into the time safety cushion I like to build into my cinema-going experience.
"We'll need to walk fast," I say. "Faster than you're walking now."
"Films never start when they start," the eldest says.
"That's not the point," I say. "The point is..." I stop because, as a parent, I reserve the right to abandon sentences I feel aren't going anywhere.
On our arrival, the two boys lead me to one of 12 long queues for refreshments, which also serve as ticket queues. This is a terrible system; every time I visit this cinema, it's never anything other than a perfect illustration of its failure.
"People buying popcorn at a cinema are, by definition, people with a pressing engagement," I say.
"Uh-huh," the eldest says, worried I am warming to a theme.
"Whereas people who come without tickets often have no plans.
"Look." I point to the front of the queue, where a young couple are staring at a diagram of a cinema on the salesperson's screen.
"Now they are thinking that, given the paucity of good seats for that particular screening, they might prefer to see something else. 'What other films start soon?' they ask. 'Really? What's that one about?'"
I can feel the first stirrings of rage well up. I have an urge to complain, but this is probably also the queue for that. Ten minutes tick by, then 15.
"Come on," I say, "let's give up."
"I'm not getting out of this queue," the eldest says.
"I withdraw my money," I say.
"I have my own money," he says. "You can go."
"We don't have separate tickets," I say. "Just the voucher I printed out at home. We have to go in together."
"It's moving now," he says.
"No, it isn't!" I shout. "This is idiotic! I'm being punished for using the stupid system the right way!" I hear giggling behind me. I realise I've become the sort of unhinged person who keeps other people entertained in long queues.
"I need to walk away now," I say. I go and stand in the centre of the lobby, keeping myself occupied by enumerating the people and institutions I am presently angry with: this cinema chain; the person at the till who is responding to a period of high demand by moving with all the alacrity of a slow loris on antidepressants; my son, for having his own money; myself, for the usual reasons. I look up to the ceiling, my face contorted by despair, imagining that someone watching a CCTV monitor somewhere will sympathise.
After 35 minutes, the eldest and his friend leave the queue with so much stuff I have to hold the door of Screen 12 open for them. My son peers in.
"The film hasn't even started yet," he says, dipping his face into his popcorn. I wonder if I should allow this news to make me angrier still. And then I think: why not? It's my weekend.
