I suppose I have many faults. Probably a few I can’t name, but ones my family could probably recite in their sleep. I’m often quick to anger, but in my heart of hearts, I’ve gotta believe that lack of patience is my top-of-the-charts, slow burning, double-grinding-stomach-churning crime of gnashin’.
To teach me and my fellow im-patient-aires, God gave man free will to invent shrink wrap on CDs with that white strip on top, the Department of Motor Vehicles, Pancake Pantry lines, and his coup de’ grace, the coup de’ (nash)ville – the 8th Avenue Kroger.
I knew better than to purchase Springsteen concert tickets over there. I knew, I knew, I knew, but it was closer than any TicketMaster outlet I know about, and I was in a hurry to score my fix of ice cream from the Pied Piper, so I went, and I stood and stood and stood. When I finally made it to my turn in the barrel, the two customer service (if you think of customer service roughly the way Jack the Ripper considered women of the night) representatives argued over who was going to have to handle my order. Nobody really likes TicketMaster (I do understand this part).
When the loser of the five minute battle finally sauntered over to the terminal to serve me, I told him I wanted Bruce Springsteen tickets. He said sure, and then proceeded to stare at his terminal for approximately four minutes (I was really hoping that Kroger had sprung for those telepathy ESP-type terminals where the brain waves were actually sending messages to the terminal, but alas, the time spent was attempting to ascertain what exactly a ‘Bruce Springsteen’ concert actually was)…finally, he looked up and asked me if I knew where Springsteen was playing. I told him Sommet and he said ok, and then went back to another period of thought and concentration.
Finally his fingers started on the keyboard and he asked me how much I wanted to spend on tickets. I thought it wise if he told me actually how much the tickets were going for, and we soon agreed that would be all for the best.
‘Ok, we have $29.00 tickets, $65.00 tickets and $97.00 tickets’. I figured the $29.00 tickets were probably on the roof at Rippys or over at Tootsies, so I opted for the $65.00 tickets. He showed me where my seats would be and I said ‘cool’ and after around 73 more key-strokes he smiled and said: ‘That’ll be $235.00’ and I said, ‘No it won’t’, and he said, ‘That’s what the computer came up with’ and ‘I said try again’, so he said, ‘For 65 bucks you get behind the stage’ and I sighed, and said ‘Lets go for the $95.00 tickets, where can I sit for that?’, and he showed me the chart and the seats were on the side high enough to see over the crowd and I said ‘fine’ and he said, ‘great’ and then he keyed about 50 more keystrokes and there was this whirring noise and the tickets printed and I paid my money and then I looked at my tickets and they were sure enough, slightly behind the stage on the side, and I said ‘uh, these are not where you said where they were going to be’ and he said ‘that’s what the computer gave you’, and I said ‘what can we do about this?’ and he said ‘I can sell you more tickets but I can’t give you your money back’ and then I realized it was God moving in his super-duper mysterious way teaching me patience and so I merely said ‘this is so sad’ and walked out. I practiced my new-found patience skills by not cursing audibly, and I am going to see The Boss, or, at least the back left quadrant of The Boss.
This patience thing is a real bitch, you know.
Salem's Lots 