I was brought up to always follow the rules. First there was the ten commandments, then the golden rule, then Sadie Kalmon’s rules for living through grammer school, and on and on. Maybe when I get to be eighty I will learn what the kids know now: following some of these rules is just idiocy.

Back in May I found out there would be a Chihuly exhibit at the Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Anticipating huge crowds I went to the website to see what kind of hoops I would have to jump through. I became a member of the garden, I went to Ticketmaster, which I hate, and got tickets for my June 28 visit, and with the usual Ticketmaster practice of giving the worst seats, parking spaces, etc., to the earliest purchasers, got parking at Lehman College. They also gave us bad directions for getting to Lehman College. The parking lot was empty and we were the only people on the shuttle bus. We got to the garden and it was also empty. If we hadn’t bothered following the rules, we would have been able to park at the door and get tickets without paying the Ticketmaster services fees. They even charge for letting you print out the tickets on your own printer. We did enjoy the show, particularly since it was empty.

Again following the rules, we bought tickets for the July 27 evening showing and paid a $20 valet parking fee. THIS IS THE OUTRAGE! For that $20 we waited one hour and 45 minutes to get our car. We walked out early in hopes of avoiding the crush, and we were amongst the last people to get their cars. We were told they had twice as many people as they expected, meaning that at least half of those people did not follow the rules and buy parking in advance, and the garden didn’t follow the rules and turn them away.