Under Lock and Key

Today I had to venture down to the Armory, again. I say again because last night before going to play rehearsal, I realized that I needed to get a gift certificate for someone at work. So I went.
Not looking up the times that they are open, which was my first mistake, I figured, "they serve dinner, they have a restaurant....so certainly I should be able to get a gift certificate from someone there."

How wrong I was.

Getting there at about 20 minutes past 6 p.m., I caught the attention of the hostess, who was in having what seemed to be a personal conversation with a man behind the desk in the office. She glanced at me once, then again, then re-engaged herself back into the conversation. Realizing that I just wasn't going away (and I NEVER do when I am on a mission), she put on her best Pat Nixon smile and ask if I needed something. I told her I needed a gift certificate for $100.

She clenched her teeth, sucked in her breath and said, "gee...I'm sorry, the person from the box office just left." I asked her what that meant, and she said,"gift certificates can only be given out at the box office, and they just left 2 minutes ago." When I asked if she was serious, she said, "yeah, I'm afraid so." I then asked, "so there's absolutely no way that I can buy a gift certificate to the Armory." Quickly, she said, "nope, I'm sorry. You have to come back when the box office is open. They are the only ones that can ring up a gift certificate."

Now, in these trying economic times where restaurants, theatres, and any unnecessary frills are often eliminated due to economizing, I would have thought that they would have been eager to sell $100 to me. Apparently, the Armory is not hurting for business like the rest of Janesville is.

So, I trekked down there again this morning, just after they opened the box office. After all, I was following their rules. The young guy behind the glass partition got my gift certificate, and then proceeded to tell me that I needed to follow him up to the host's station so that he could ring up my purchase, as they weren't able to do it in the box office.

How interesting, they couldn't process the payment in the box office. They couldn't get the gift certificate at the host's station. Sounds like a very plausible system to me.

I should have just gotten the person at work a gift certificate somewhere else where you can do everything all in the same spot. Little did I know that those gift certificates were like gold in Fort Knox. Apparently it's called "The Armory" for other reasons.