Sometimes, Seattle IS better

Over here in the eastern part of Washington , we tend to suffer from comparison to the grandness known as Seattle. A couple of times a year, at least, somebody at our paper does a story (look down eight paragraphs) or at least makes a comment about how much better the “quality of life” or the “lifestyle” or the price of just about everything is better over here.

It’s been that way since I moved here from Eugene, Ore., in 1980. And it gets a bit tiring to hear. Insecurity always does.

Fact is, life in Spokane – for the most part – is comfortable. Which is something you can’t say about Seattle and its surroundings. I just spent the last weekend fighting the traffic up and down Aurora Ave., on Queen Anne, Capitol Hill, the U-District and all the areas in between while trying to navigate the Seattle International Film Festival .

But here is one way in which Seattle – aside from all its obvious superiorities in the arts, in closeness to the ocean, in pure sense of cool – has it all over Spokane. I’ll explain in an anecdote.

Last Friday my daughter, Rachel, and I took in a SIFF movie at AMC’s Pacific Place Cinemas . The movie, a Danish effort titled “Adam’s Apple,” got out about 6 p.m. And when we went down to pay for our ticket, there were three lines going, plus two self-pay machines, serving maybe 50 people. We stood in line for about three and a half minutes.

Now, fast-forward to yesterday. I’d returned on Sunday from Seattle and, part of working the holiday, I took my brother, Randy, to the 4:05 showing of “X-Men: The Last Stand” at the AMC complex in River Park Square. We got out just before 6 and … the comparison with Seattle couldn’t have been more stark.

There are only two pay stations at River Park Square, one on the ground floor, one on the third floor where the movie box office and food courts are. The management of the mall had only one guy on duty at the third-floor station, which meant that at one point I was one of 35 people standing in line.

Our line snaked back toward the down escalator, which caused a bottleneck with both the people coming down from the theaters and those heading down toward the second floor. And I stood in line for nearly 15 minutes.

Now why, on a holiday with a summer blockbuster such as “X-Men” playing ever other hour, wouldn’t the mall management have thought to make sure at least two clerks were working the pay station? Why is the process such a hassle? And why haven’t they ever put in self-pay machines?

I wasn’t the only one asking that question, and I wasn’t the only one fuming over the fact that no one was around to provide an answer.

Sometimes those of us living on this side of the Cascades resent those who say that things are better in Seattle. But the sad truth is that sometimes, in some ways, they are.