Tickets went on sale for the Wisconsin Film Fest at noon today. We had the films we wanted to see picked out the night before and sat waiting with the web browser of the most dependable computer in the house parked on the film fest web site, mouse-clicking finger poised ready to hit the “buy now” icon.

Yesterday after work we went to the Roman Candle on Willy Street to eat pizza and drink beer while we pored over the latest issue of The Isthmus, which included a special insert with all the films at the festival and a schedule. Anna, our waitress, brought us a couple of beers just minutes after we sat down, and while we were waiting for her to deliver our 16-inch Supreme we read through the descriptions of all the films and struggled to fit our favorites into the scheduled showings.

Then the bargaining started. On the plus side, we seem to like the same kind of movies, so we each picked out a lineup of favorites that was very similar to the other’s. On the negative side, I was a lot more cavalier about how I chose my movies based on the scheduled showings. When there was a conflict, I made my decision pretty quickly, then tried not to look back. In contrast, B agonized over choices all night.

But B’s technique was nothing compared to the one Anna’s mother used. When Anna saw us wrangling over choices, she told us that her mother ranked each movie by assigning points to them. That’s way too meticulous for me, and is probably even too meticulous for My Darling B, who tends to rank almost any list of things with smiley faces versus frowney faces.

Taking our programs home with us, we finished making our choices shortly before lights out, then retired to bed, exhausted. But we were up bright an early this morning to get our weekly trip to the farmer’s market out of the way in time to be home to buy tickets the minute they went on sale.