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Box Office Brain Freeze

posted by Elana McKernan on Mon, Feb 9, 2009
in At the theatre

Unfortunately, I am not referring to the painful overindulgence that causes milkshake-hungry children to furrow their brows and hop up and down in pain. No; our flavor of ice cream is much less delicious, and much more embarrassing than the traditional chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry. I call it the "box office brain freeze" and it comes in one flavor only: shame.

While its symptoms are sometimes identical to a more traditional brain freeze (scowls, extended periods of silence, incomprehensible noises, etc.), the box office brain freeze is a thing unto itself. 

We don't like to admit it, the proud box office creatures that we are, but sometimes our brains simply fail us. Perhaps this happens to everyone, but since we are talking to patrons 24/7 we are less able to hide our premature senility. If you are ever on the phone with one of us during such an episode, I sincerely apologize. The first step in addressing a problem is identifying it. Common symptoms of the box office brain freeze are:

1. Slow reaction time. Does your box office representative sound distant? Is he or she speaking at an abnormally slow tempo? Perhaps he or she just came back from a  relaxing yoga session. To determine if this is the case, make a casual mention of a "downward facing dog." If your box office rep. responds with a "yeah, man" (other telling responses are a good-natured chuckle accompanied by a "right on," a mention of the lotus pose, or the sound of a nodding head), then he or she is likely a yoga master trying to bring zen to the world of ticket exchanges. Proceed with patience. Perhaps the zen will rub off on you! If your reference is met with more silence, proceed to number two. *In mild cases of box office brain freeze, the mere mention of a downward facing dog may shock said box office rep. into full cognitive abilities.

2. Prolonged periods of silence. Before we jump to any conclusions here, please check your phone connection. Are you using a cell phone? If so, are you standing in a tunnel or cave? Are you in the woods? Are you in a BART car? The French countryside? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, please hang up the phone and call us when standing outside in a populated area. Are you using a land line? If so, do you have any small pets that might have chewed through and/or peed on your phone jack? If so, please hang up the phone and bunny-proof your house. Good. Now that you have secured your method of communication, are your questions met with resounding silence? Proceed to number three.

3. Does your sales representative make comments that are completely unrelated to the question you may or may not have asked? This could point to an obscure form of the brain freeze in which every part of the mind is frozen except for that which triggers the speech function. The symptoms often resemble the previously discussed "Word Jumble."  However, the Word Jumble is much less extreme than the Box Office brain freeze and is almost immediately identified by the sales representative (and duly apologized for). 

Though commonly mistaken for apathy or us simply not paying attention, the Box Office brain freeze is really quite innocuous. We don't mean to ignore you; our brains give us no other choice. The best remedy for the Box Office brain freeze is patience and plenty of good humor. We box office folk have no trouble laughing at ourselves. In fact, it tends to be the quickest way of thawing our addled minds.