Four For Friday - Tickets

Tickets were going on sale on a Friday. That was always a tough day because it meant skipping school, or at least part of it. It also meant convincing the parents that the concert was important enough to not only camp out in a parking lot, but also miss some school. One of the more tricky aspects of skipping school WITH the parents permission is that I had to write and sign the excuse note. Oh sure, my parents would write one, but I would then take their note and tear it up and write my own.

I learned during my Sophomore year of high school that the school office looked at the signature on the enrollment form to see if your excuse note was a forgery. So, beginning my Junior year, I signed the enrollment form in the way I would sign my parents' names. Worked like a charm. Except for when they gave me permission to skip.

Anyway, the people I usually camped out with for tickets all had an exam that day. I had a different teacher and no exam. None of them wanted to camp out either because they knew it would involve drinking and a high probability of missing the first period exam.

One of the calls I made was to someone I sometimes hung out with. She lived nearby but went to a private school and had a different group of friends. We had known each other forever and knew she was always down for a good camping out for tickets kind of night. She said sure and was going to bring TB. I have given her other initials in the past, but I am too lazy to look it up right now. One of my friends had dated TB which is how I spent most of my time with her. At that point in time, I don't think they were still dating, but I can't be sure.

The night came and we trekked it down to a grimy parking lot that had our ticket wonderland on one side and a liquor store on the other. A liquor store that was perfectly willing to sell to hundreds of minors who were waiting in line. I don't ever remember the police doing much caring about it either. I also don't ever remember there being a fight. I think we all kind of knew that we had a good thing going with the liquor store and a bunch of people getting in a drunken fight would jeopardize that.

Usually when I write about TB, it generally involves her doing me a favor or something. In this case though, she was there, but not really a part of the story. Yes, she is famous, but this incident is about another person who is famous and was there that night. At one point he was A+ list. An obnoxious A+ list, but he was. The flashiest of flash in the pans. A one year wonder, but, he has made a lifetime living off that one year of fame. He was there that night and several years from any kind of level of fame, but he acted as if he was already A list. He hit on every female in that parking lot and he used every line from every movie that you could think of. People were crying from laughing so hard but he was deadly serious. He thought his lines were working. Honestly. It got to the point where TB and my friend and others would engage with him just so they could hear more of his lines.

After that night, I didn't see him again until many years later at the peak of his fame. TB says she ran into him a couple of times, but never brought up the night to him. She did say he would always look at her with a strange expression because she would think back to that night and break out laughing all over again.

As for tickets? 10th row for that concert. I don't ever remember getting closer than that by purchasing them.