U2 Should Be So Lucky

U2 was in town and sold out, but PaulA and I decided to go anyway and buy tickets off a scalper. Let’s just say…we got ourselves a haircut. (huh?) PaulA’s plan was to deal with the scalper alone…without his wife standing next to him. For some reason, he thought he could get a better price…but he just couldn’t shake me. Here’s the scenario:

We head toward the venue and hear a guy whisper, “Yo...you need tickets?” The guy opens his long overcoat and has tickets stashed in his pockets. All are ridiculously overpriced…so I reluctantly agree with PaulA to take the general admission tickets on the floor. I won't stand an entire show for just any band…but for U2, I could do that.

We get in line before the doors open and we’re hungry. So PaulA says he’ll run over to a little sandwich shop and get a sandwich for us to split while we wait in line. He comes back with...a huge, messy tuna fish sandwich. Tuna?? Are you crazy, PaulA? With PaulA’s first bite, tuna slops to the floor and kisses Paul’s shirt on the way down. Nice choice PaulA. The people around us won’t appreciate the stinkin’ tuna on the floor, the stinkin’ tuna on your shirt, and the stinkin’ tuna on our breath.

Finally, the line begins to move and we get down the stairs where they take our tickets to scan the bar code. The machine reads our tickets and makes no sound – NOTHING. Nada. No…Welcome….Come on in, PaulA and Kat. More like…PaulA and Kat - You Posers…You have bogus tickets. I was suddenly thinking of that shaddy guy and pictured him laughing as he was counting his money and twirling his moustache. We’re not sure what to say or do …so we stand there with blank faces. They eventually let us go…we are general admission anyway and don’t need seats. (Good thing I was so agreeable about standing.)

The next checkpoint in line…they are counting people. They stop PaulA and ask, “Anyone with you?” He points to me and they say, “The two of you; step out of the line.” Geez PaulA, you’re going to throw your wife under the bus with you …thanks a lot! Then they motion for us to go through a different doorway. Okay, that’s it…they’re showing us the door…any second we are out in the cold. (And I will hunt that guy down.)

We go through the designated doorway and realize that we are still inside…Whew. In fact, we are inside the ellipse shape that U2 makes with their stage. We find out it’s a lottery thing and some of the general admission people are randomly chosen for inside the ellipse. We could not be happier with that shady guy, than at this moment.

When the lights come on…we are the luckiest U2 fans ever. U2 is standing directly in front of us. We are right by the stage… up-front, up-close and in their faces. In fact, we are so close I am worried that Bono might smell the stinkin’ tuna on our breath.