Free stuff for kids-hey, maybe you should have came in early!

[depechemodefan]

The circus is coming to town. The library, as a prize for reading x amount of books, were giving away free tickets for kids to the circus. This started sometime in June.

Yesterday our library only had 6 tickets left. The branches ran out.

Today's conversation with a parent:

Parent: Hi, I live at Finewood apts. I wanted to go to the circus on July 11 since tickets are $10, but my apt. manager told me the library was giving away tickets, but I was at the library yesterday and the librarian didn't say anything about it! My kids were reading books.
Me: I'm sorry, but all the libraries ran out of the free tickets for the circus.
Parent: Well, the library should have a newsletter letting parents know when you are giving away things like this!
Me: On our website, you can select the library you go to through "locations" and there will be info. on what the libraries are giving away.
Parent: Well, I guess I have to buy the $10 tickets.

[Fufu487]

Another fine tale of an EW who thinks that "free" means "guarenteed to all".

[tropicsgoddess]

Cheapskate.

[Megg]

Right? They are $10, lady. $50, I might get a little gleeful at some freebies, but ten bucks? WTF-ever. Not to mention ... say it with me, you know we are all thinking it ... a lack of planning on your part NEVER constitutes an emergency on mine. Get it together, or get over it, I say!

[LillFilly]

Sigh. Sometimes I work for a company that does picnics, kid's parties, etc. where we do balloon animals, crafts, facepainting, etc. And I mean AWESOME crafts like painting ceramics, t-shirt presses, beadwork. We'll have 2-4 crafts for several hours, then switch-out 2-crafts for another 2; for variety. Needless to say as soon as we get rid of THOSE TWO crafts, parents come over and whine that their kids didn't get to do them! Umm, we ran them for 3-hours, you had plenty of time. I hate that and the parents who insist on me doing some intricate face design (I do the painting) on their squirming toddler, when I can't even manage to get the brush near them!!!

[Apathy]

Parent: Well, I guess I have to buy the $10 tickets.

I think you'll survive, idiot.
I'll bet she wouldn't have thought twice about paying 10 or 20 bucks for something, but now that she missed getting it for free, the library's out to get her.

[depechemodefan]

I think you'll survive, idiot.
but now that she missed getting it for free, the library's out to get her.

That is what killed me. That she was implying that the librarian purposefully didn't give her the tickets she deserved. Instead of thinking, you know, that there were no more tickets.

Did she really think she was the only one wanting free tickets?

Heck, the day before a woman wanted the tickets, and the kids librarians were able to hold 2 for her. The woman wanted more held (I guess for herself, but they are kids tickets), but I told her we would only hold 2. Then she wanted us to hold some for her neighbor, and I said we could but then she wanted to pick up the tickets for the neighbor so I told her to have her neighbor call us to hold them.

[depechemodefan]

This is on the librarians' blog today:

Circus Tickets

***Update from H**** D*****: we no longer have any circus tickets. All 13,000 have been claimed by kids who already completed this year's SRP***


P.S. The Central Kids Room is also out of Houston Astros Baseball Ticket Coupons and Whataburger certificates.


We had 13,000 tickets?!?!

[cinema guy]

13000? That's a big circus.

[tamezin]

Parent: Well, I guess I have to buy the $10 tickets.

I don't know where you are at, but in my city the big circus is sponsored by the Moila Shriners. Even though there is a fee listed for children, free tickets are available all over the city. Everytime I have been there with my kids, there is always a shriner outside the ticket area giving kid tickets away to families who don't have them. They even let the developmentally disabled adults use the free child tickets. The catch is normally you have to have one adult ticket per free child ticket (not strictly enforced).

I am guessing the dude used a lot of piss poor planning ... decided at the last minute to go, and all of the free ticket sources were gone. Too bad so sad.

[AriRashkae]

The last time I recall getting free tickets to anything that weren't part of working/helping out was last years (multi-)state fair. We were walking up to the ticket booth, hauling the 3 year old and 11 year old in the covered wagon, when the couple in front of us stopped and gave us their kids-price tickets! They were exhibitors, and had gotten a 4 pack of tickets, but only needed the 2 adult ones. We practically fell over ourselves thanking them, which apparently made their morning.

[Andara Bledin]

The last time I remember free tickets was at a Moody Blues concert. It was me, my mother, my aunt, and my brother. We didn't have tickets for everybody, and there was a guy out front asking if people needed a spare ticket. Everybody was avoiding this guy for some reason, but my mom approached him. The guy said some other guy gave him a pair of really nice tickets (close to the stage and dead center), and my brother got to be the one to sit with him. So the band gets on stage, and the guy with the free ticket points to John Lodge and says, "Hey, that's the guy that geve me the tickets!"

^-.-^