From the moment I woke up yesterday, I was feeling dizzy--the kind of dizzyness you get after riding on a roller coaster five times in a row. Normally, I'd just go back to sleep. But on this particular day, I had added motivation to stay awake.

I dragged me and my dizzy head to SM Manila. When I got there, my buddy Philos handed me a free ticket to Spider-Man 3. Yay! Advance happy birthday Philos! The ticket looked strange though. I was supposed to have a reserved seat, but the seat number, K10, was handwritten instead of machine-printed. Hmm, that can't be good.

If you're wondering why the ticket looks like crap... the guard took a bite out of it as I entered the cinema. Plus the ticket already looked like crap to begin with.

Sure enough, something wasn't right. There was a woman in my seat, which happened to be her seat too--she showed me a ticket that also had "K10" scribbled on it. What the hell? I went outside to complain, and that was when I found out how their reservation system works. The clerk had a seating chart, and a chimpanzee beside her was marking the reserved seats with crayons... or something like that. I was dizzy.

If you're wondering why there seems to be a lot of seats available... this one is the chart for the next screening.

The clerk checked her colorful chart and told me that seat Q14 was open. I went back in just as the movie was starting. It took me quite a while to find Q14--some genius decided that they only need to place letter labels on the right side of the aisle and not the left. Of course, when I finally found it, there was already a guy in my seat. It's my seat! Mine! What the hell is going on here? And of course, he also had a ticket marked Q14, so there was nothing I could do.

I was ready to go outside and shout at the clerk, but the opening credits were almost over. So I plopped myself down on Q12, the only open seat in the vicinity. Good thing no one came up to me during the movie and told me that I took his seat. I would have blown a fuse.

On the plus side, after getting agitated over the whole thing, I wasn't dizzy anymore. Wow. Yay! Who said laughter is the best medicine? Anger worked just as well for me.