General Admission

I’ve kind of neglected blogging lately. I’ve been disgustingly busy. Between vacation and recording, I haven’t had a chance to even watch any TV until tonight. I’m actually catching up on the final three Pushing Daisies episodes even as I type.

I may get around to blogging about my recent California trip. I’ll definitely be blogging more about Joseph over the next two months. I quite possibly might blog about my high school reunion that I was coerced into attending this weekend. However, for now, my focus is my former love, Kelly. Some of the details may be a little foggy, but I’m reconstructing the night as best I can remember. (Teri and Matt, please feel free to correct or add anything in the comments.)

Be warned, this blog is very long (shocker!) and may change your opinion of me. I think it’s funny, though, so I had to share.

Thursday night, Kelly performed at the UVU ballpark in Orem. It was a general admission show, of which I’m not a fan. However, I braved it for Kelly.

Matt and I were fully planning to meet her, and we made nerdy posters that afternoon. We ended up ditching them in the car because it was POURING when we showed up to the line. You can see pictures of them on my Facebook profile. I’m not going to post any pictures in this blog, but you can see lots of pictures on there, so feel free to look.

We got in line with industrial ponchos borrowed from my mom, and then waited. After a bit, Teri showed up. Then, we saw that my niece and her friends were closer to the front of the line, so we joined them. The rain had pretty much stopped. Shortly after we moved, David showed up, less than 24 hours after being released from his mission.

We got into the park and quickly made our way to the fence that separated us commoners from the VIPs. As we took our place against the fence, some snotty girl tried to tell us that we were standing in her spot. She was a good 5 feet behind us, though, so we didn’t do anything. A moment later, she approached me and tried to tell me that I was standing in the place she had reserved. I looked around and saw no traces of a “reserved” spot. She said “We’re right here.” I looked at where she was standing and said “Great. We’re here” and motioned to where we were. She told me to move, because she was waiting for her friends to come, and they were going to put a blanket down. I told her that was fine. There was plenty of room for that. She pointed out that they had left their shoes where we were standing. We looked down and saw the shoes behind us, a good 3 feet from the fence. We refused to move.

A moment later, another girl got really snotty and told me to move. I fought with her a bit, and told her that if they had been nice to begin, I might have been willing to work something out with them. They assured me that the girls next to us were planning to move for them, too. They still had no blanket put down, and were fighting off people that came within their 6 foot radius. Girl #2 looked eerily like a young, witchy Mallory Keaton. She got in my face and I explained to her that it was general admission. That means that you get there and you find your place and plant it. I told her that if there really were 8 of them, they should have been there, otherwise, they have to fight with everyone else for room. I told her “I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is.” She retorted with “You’re not sorry! If you were sorry you would move!” I said “I’m not really sorry if you’re going to act like that.” She then told me to not say I’m sorry then, and she stormed off and tattled to her friends.

Soon after that, girl #3 tried to talk to us, and I reiterated everything I had said and refused to move. She tried to tell me that it wasn’t fair that we should barge in because they had been waiting HOURS in the rain for this. I said “So were we!” She brought up the blanket again, and I pointed out that they’re crazy if they’re planning to sit on the blanket all night anyway, because they wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway. I turned around, and they plotted quietly behind us for a few minutes.

Girl #1 then returned and said “Excuse me, sir, would you please move?” I said no, and she FLIPPED and said that I promised I’d move if they asked nicely. I told her that’s not what I said, and that they had gotten really pissy and I was not willing to work with them. She told me that nobody had been pissy and I pointed out Mallory, who I assumed was her sister. She said “She is my sister, and she’s a teenager. She doesn’t know any better. YOU do!” I told her she had great tactics, but I still wasn’t moving. One of the pre-teen girls next to us, who I’m going to refer to as “Molly” turned around and interrupted to say “It’s general admission! Don’t you know what that means?!” Girl #1 got more mad with me after the pre-teens laughed at her, and after she was making rude comments to me, I said “Wow. You’re such a ray of sunshine!” She retreated.

The girls set their blanket down finally – ON OUR FEET. Then Mallory, in a fit of protest, sat down on the front corner of it so she was leaning against my leg. From then on, she kept bumping me with her elbows and rubbing her hair on my legs. I didn’t budge. Sorry, sweetie. I work with teenagers. I know your tactics, and I’m not going to budge. Teri leaned in and told me she wished I would fart. Mallory’s face was literally next to my rear end.

Molly’s dad showed up and I told him he better not stand with the girls, because he’d get yelled at. He laughed, and sure enough, Girl #1 was then telling him that he needed to move. He told her that he wasn’t moving. She was FURIOUS. Molly and her friends started teasing her again by telling her it’s “freaking general admission”. (I don’t know WHERE they had heard that phrase…) Molly’s dad told them that there had been plenty of room for them to squeeze in when he and the girls showed up, and they got angry and said “there are 8 of us!” He looked at them, grinned and said “I only saw 2 [or maybe 3 – I can’t remember what he said for sure].” They were boiling by this point.

Meanwhile, the rest of the evil girls’ party showed up, and they explained the situation and made sure to loudly point out the jerk in the white hoodie. (ME!) The friends looked at the fiercely-defended blanket and said “So? We’ll be fine. We can see.” I laughed out loud.

Also, two other girls, Ariel and Sharon showed up on the other side of Matt and instantly made friends with us. They were laughing at the evil girls as much as we were. We liked them. Next to them, a family was dealing with the same situation as the evil girls. They brought security over to make people move, and security told them it was their own fault. It was general admission, and if they wanted to be in front, they should have not left room between their blanket and the fence. HA! The evil girls caught wind of it, and were even more mad.

Molly left to go to the bathroom at one point, and when she came back, the evil girls blocked her from getting back to her place and made a huge deal about it. We were TICKED. She worked her way around finally and was in tears. Her dad was getting bugged, and then his friend, who had been a judge for the opening act (talent competition finalists) came and gave her a VIP bracelet so she was able to go sit in the front section for the show. HA! The girls looked even more mad. I was loudly declaring all night that it was their choice whether or not they wanted to have fun, and that if they were going to be ornery, it was their own fault. They didn’t care.

As it got closer to the concert, Mallory stuck her foot out on the grass between Teri and me. We were dying. Sharon took a picture of it. We had also posed for pictures of us that were REALLY pictures of the evil girls (see Facebook). They saw us doing it and knew. It was hysterical. When it was time for Kelly to start, Melinda showed up and fought her way to the front to join us. As she was barreling toward us, she TOTALLY knocked over one of the evil girls by accident. She caught her and kept her from face-planting, and then joined our group. The girls were now beyond the point where they could control their emotions. They were PISSED. I scooted over a bit so Melinda could squeeze in, and I bumped Mallory’s foot. I looked down at it, raised my foot over it and planted it Sumo style on the other side. I heard her angry reaction behind me, and that’s when I finally lost all of my manners, tact, and maturity and I – wait for it – farted. Right in Mallory’s face. I’m sorry, but after acting the way she did, and making a little girl cry, she deserved it. I will happily claim that moment of sinking to her level, because, dang, it felt good.

Kelly came out, and the girls started a new approach: ruin the concert for us to get even. They kept leaning toward me and screaming as loud as they could in my ear. They started jumping up and down and crashing into me, because when you’re a girl around the age of 20, if an older man has angered you, the obvious thing to do is slam your breasts into his back, right?

I leaned forward and said something to Teri about how I’d had it, and if they slammed into me one more time, they were going to get it. They did. The next time they started slamming into me, I let it go. I started jumping up and down with them. Half of them about fell over, and they started slamming at me harder, but then realized they were losing and stopped.

They went back to squealing instead of getting physical. When they saw it wasn’t doing anything, they started the slamming again, only in full force from the side and behind me. I joined them and this time, when I started jumping, they started ramming me and trying to knock me forward into Teri. Stupid girls. Really?! Do you REALLY think you can knock me over? By staying firm, I knocked them backward and then planted my feet on their blanket. I heard their gasps as they stopped. FOR THE REST OF THE SHOW! I won!

I finally had to resort to their level to get them to knock it off, but it was worth it. Hopefully they learned a lesson. Even though I didn’t know Molly at all, you DON’T mess with kids around me. You just don’t. I was actually starting to feel bad for them because they had been too stupid to find out how a general admission concert worked, but at that point, I was done.

The show itself was incredible. Kelly was kind of goofy, but she always is. Her singing was amazing. She HAS put on a little weight, but she’s not “fat” like people keep saying. She wore a sleeveless shirt, and I don’t think her arms even jiggled a tiny bit. I was more and more in love with her as the night progressed.

The weather held up nicely. It started to sprinkle a bit right as she came on stage, but it was just enough to create a double rainbow that seemed to end over the stage (see Facebook photos).

We were prepared to go find her in the backstage area afterward and were even working our connections, but the second the show ended – Kelly skipped town. I was really annoyed. It felt like a slap in the face to her fans. Not even a single encore song. I had even purchased copies of Breakaway and Thankful to have her sign.

The evil girls left the second the show ended, and Molly ran back to her dad to show him that she had caught a broken drumstick that flew into the audience. It was awesome to see her so excited.

We stayed and took some photos, and Melinda got the actual setlist from her friend who was working the soundboard. Then we went to Denny’s for dessert with our new friends.

The night ended up being a ton of fun – because we chose to make it that way. We were with old friends, we made new friends, and we got to see an amazing live performance.

However, I was so bugged at the way Kelly took off, that it kind of ruined her for me. I still love her music, but my lame crush is kind of dying.

And that, my friends, is nearly all of the details of my fantastic night with Kelly. And Teri, Matt, Melinda, David, Sharon, Ariel, Molly, Molly’s dad, Molly’s friends, and the evil Mallory Keaton and her cronies. If you read it all, you deserve a prize.