Twas three days before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse? Why wasn't anything stirring? It probably had something to do with most everybody I knew was out of town for the holiday and boredom was settling in Saturday.I needed to get off the couch and do something, anything. The Christmas shopping was done two weeks ago so thankfully there would be no mall interaction. The frozen brown grass outside ruled out any winter activities and watching "Everybody Loves Raymond" re-runs (not everybody loves him) just wasn't doing it for me. There was a ray of hope on the sports ticker; however, as the Spartans were playing hoops at two. My large melon had an idea; head to East Lansing and watch the game. The worst case scenario was there wouldn't be any scalpers with tickets and I'd go to an East Lansing watering hole to watch it.
Ah yes, the scalper. I learned about scalpers quite early in life. I didn't know what a ticket office was as my dad usually searched out the man pushing the grocery cart outside of Tiger Stadium. My favorite scalping story involves a handful of my friends who shall remain nameless. They weren't looking for tickets though, they were looking for switchblades (silly kids). As I wasn't there, I'm going off of memory from the story so some of the details are sketchy. The story takes place in New York City sometime in the mid-late 80's. A group of friends go out there to visit a fellow Milford-ian going to school out there. I can't recall if the group was solicited or if one member went asking for them but regardless, an agreement was made for some switchblades in exchange for cash. The seller of said switchblades comes back with a paper bag that he gives to my friend and takes the cash. The group heads off, opens the bag, and in it is two Butterfinger candy bars. Waaa, waaaa....
Anyway, back to Saturday. As I've never been to an event where there weren't scalpers, it was of no surprise that I was met by a handful of very ethical individuals who were willing to give me the very best seats in the house, in their minds. How could so many people have the best seats in the house? In the scalping game, numbers are a good thing. As I was haggling with one guy (mind you, the game was just about to start), I gave him my final offer and started to walk towards another solicitor. My offer was accepted and off I went. While they weren't front row, center court, paying $10 for a pretty good lower level seat works for me so, as the poem ends......Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Trail Head
