This story comes at the end of My Worst Week Ever, which was a couple or a few weeks ago.
I went to the Minnesota Roller Girls meet in St. Paul. My friend once again had a free ticket. She has yet to ask me to pay her back. I love her. I like her fiancé as well.
It was halftime and I wanted to go out and just people-watch. I had my ticket with me, just in case I get asked by the usher. I put it in the program I toted with me because I was afraid I'd lose it if I just held onto my ticket.
I was everywhere -- upstairs, downstairs, peeing somewhere. When I was about to go through the door to get to my quasi-trackside seat, I opened up my program ... and didn't see my ticket. Shit! I didn't need it to get back to my seat, I just wanted to have it as a souvenir. I have a tiny bag full of movie tickets and sporting event stubs that I keep. I don't think I've gone through them after I put shove them into the bag. But it's important to me. They are souvenirs of things that I did and want to remember, even if I don't go back and remind myself specifically of those moments. I hope that doesn't make me shallow.
Now, there are probably events I've lost the tickets/stubs for. But while I was sitting there, at my seat, spacing from a game that against the All-Star team from Washington, D.C. that very quickly turned into a blowout and wondering if I might've dropped it trying to wash my hands in the upstairs bathroom, I just couldn't shake my frustration over losing a ticket for this bout. And while this event wasn't over, I became determined to either find that ticket or, failing that, getting one to commemorate the evening.
I announced to my party that I was going to the bathroom. She didn't have to re-announce it for everyone; I didn't think I said that that loud. I took the next, oh, 10 or 15 minutes retracing my steps while looking on the floor to see if there's a ticket that matches my seat. Nothing.
I was despondent, truly, truly depressed. After all the shit that happened and all the shit I failed to do that week, losing something as simple as a ticket was the last straw. If I didn't have my druthers, I would have broken down then and there. But I held it together because I was sure I could get a souvenir.
So the bout ends. It's an after-bout ritual to walk up track-side and stick our your hand as the players roll through and give you high-fives. I wanted to do that, then go back and find a ticket left behind by a spectator. My plan was foiled, however, when the other three people in my party immediately jumped up and prepared to leave.
I went up trackside as a way to scope out some tickets on the floor, and I kind of took my time to gather my coat and hat and gloves to see if I could find one. Bastards probably thought this game was as special to remember as I. However, there was one ticket lying on the floor. Unfortunately, it was lying in a space reserved for a trackside seat on the floor, and there was a party of three, one of whose heels was almost touching it.
I didn't fucking care. I had to make a stand -- for my dignity, my sanity, for myself. So, acting surreptitiously (I think) I moseyed down to that trio. They seemed really into the conversation they had with each other, because I just bent down and, kneeling so low and so close that the person I was behind could have farted and I would have been directly hit at point-blank range, picked up the ticket. I then caught up to the my friends/party, who were either wondering where I was or were just waiting for me.
When we left the doors of the lobby we parted ways -- they were going in one direction, I was going in the other. Content with my pilfer, I started walking down the hall and outside into the night. But then ... well, shit, I don't know what exactly came over me. I think, though I kind of don't remember, that I really wanted to take one more shot and finding my ticket, not taking away someone else's. I was alone; I didn't have friends that would've needed to wait for me, or would think me strange if I wanted to go back. And if I couldn't go back or I couldn't find my ticket, well, at least I had this one I picked up off the floor. I mean, I have the souvenir, which is the most important thing. I won't remember that it's not technically mine, and I've already forgotten the section, row and seat number on my actual ticket.
So, as everybody was streaming out the auditorium, I forced my way. Good thing security didn't stop me. I acted like I lost something, something I could do because I used that excuse on my party, and they're not there to say, "Didn't you say that earlier this evening?"
That trio I bent down near to pick up a ticket? I started to feel intense pangs of guilt, as if the ticket is burning a hole in my pants pocket as it gets nearer its owner. So I went back to the area around this threesome, and I checked the ticket that I picked up to make sure that it wasn't dropped there by somebody else and that in fact it didn't belong to these people. But the area where I found the ticket corresponded to its exact location. One of those three strangers is the owner of a ticket I had stolen three minutes before.
"Stealing" that was pathetic. Didn't care -- and then I did. And at this point I could make things even worse by being overly dramatic about a slip of paper. But I couldn't live with myself not going back, and I couldn't just drop the ticket back on the floor without knowing if that stub was property of one of those three people who continued to just stand there and kibitz away.
So, even though I risked being labeled as "that guy who went up to us because we dropped a ticket right at our feet," I interruped their conversation and said that the ticket in my hand, the one "that I just found," might belong to one of those three. And it did; this group didn't decide to stand and talk in a place different from the seats for the bout. Well, I'm glad I knew I was pretty much stealing that ticket. I would've felt really, really guilty if I just took the ticket and left the auditorium when its rightful owner might have gathered his or her belongings and saw that his or her ticket was gone. They thanked me.
At this stage I was now fully committed to acting like I'm searching for something. And I am -- just for something that's not mine. I went back up to my seat, just in case I dropped my stub. Saw nothing. And I didn't see any stray tickets on the floor with no one adjacent. But ... when I looked at the next section, one row up, I saw a ticket! And no one was loitering in the section, let alone the row, let alone the seat. So what if it's not the one for my actual seat. I got my souvenir!
Maybe that broke my streak of bad luck.
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