Seating drama overshadows show

Dear Miss Manners: I saw a wonderful show recently, but the first act was nearly ruined.

I settled into my seat at 7:25 with the help of an usher. During the overture, a mother and daughter arrived and sat in the two open seats on my right. After the show started, another mother and daughter arrived and made their way to the sole remaining seat on our row.

The woman to my right loudly hissed at me, “You’re in the wrong seat.” I ignored her. She then said, louder, “You’re in their seat.”

I replied, “My ticket is for seat 125. I’m in seat 125.” She asked what row, and I told her row E. On my left, the daughter sat in her mother’s lap for a few scenes, then they left our row for other seats close by.

Several people around us then started asking the woman on my right to be quiet, as did I. She replied very loudly, “Don’t tell me to be quiet.”

When I have encountered seating problems like this on airplanes or in theaters, I start with the premise that I might be wrong. Being accused of being in the wrong seat, loudly and while the show was underway set me off.

When the lights came up at intermission, I told the woman on my right that my ticket was for E-125 and that seemed to be the seat I was sitting in. I asked her what seats her tickets were for. She summoned an usher.

The usher looked at my ticket and said that my seat was for the second balcony, and that I was sitting in the first balcony. I apologized to the woman, and told her that this is where I had been seated by the usher.

I wish that the usher or I had noticed that I was on the wrong level in the first place. How could I have handled this better?

Gentle Reader: By not taking Miss Manners on a journey of eight paragraphs before revealing that you were wrong.

They should have been on time, less noisy and more polite.