The hundred-and-fourteenth day...

So, I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince today! It was amazingly great - it just had so many great parts in it :) I really liked that Luna had some more screen time - she's delightful. That Gryffindor headdress was too much.

Anyway, after the movie, my man, Sis 1, Sis 2 and I went to catch a quick bite at BK, then headed back to the theater (of course :) to catch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (the Sisters hadn't seen it yet). On the way up the escalator, it made a slight screeching sound and then came to a rather hard and seriously unexpected stop. We were just about at the top of this picture:

My sisters were standing in front of me, and my man was standing behind me. Sis 2 stumbled a bit, Sis 1 had to grab onto Sis 2 to keep from falling forward, and I would have fallen all the way down to the bottom of the escalator if my man hadn't been there. There were also three other kids on the escalator at the time. It was ridiculous. The people walking down the down escalator (that wasn't working) all gasped and stared. Did I mention that it was ridiculous?

We had already had a customer service issue at BK, so needless to say, I was already in a fighting mood. I stomped up the stairs and immediately demanded to speak with a manager. The conversation started civilly enough, but it quickly turned into something filled with evil eyes, raised voices, anger, and tears when the Manager tossed me a look of fake concern and said "I've never heard of such a thing happening. Which escalator was it? This one?" Huh? Which escalator? What? How about the one leading up to the theater!

Anyway, after a while, I was drawing quite a bit of attention, and several patrons began to look back and forth between the Manager and the escalator so she finally answered one of my numerous questions (I was firing questions at her like a freaking machine gun, one of which was what she intended to do about the steel deathtrap) and she informed me that she would inform both the general manager and the maintenance company, and the escalator would be shut down. I didn't drop my gaze until she swore to call them and shut it down immediately. She then asked me if we had come to see a movie. I answered that yes, we had, as we were in a theater. She comped us the tickets for the Transformers 2, but I left her my name and number and told her to call me with the contact information for the General Manager - who I followed up with when I got home.

It's sad, but truth be told, this isn't the first time that the escalator has been shut down. One of the questions that I asked the Manager was what she would have done if someone had been seriously hurt, but (no surprise) she had no answer. I think I'll follow up with them again next week.

When did common sense become such a rarity?

Have an excellent night everyone!