(c) Celine Sparks, 2022
I live under a rock. I hear bits and pieces of celebrity headlines, and in 2009 wasn’t sure if Michael Jackson was dead or got a nose job. So the past few days, shards of shrapnel have made their way under the rock, and I’m pretty sure that a ticket industry is tucking its tail between its legs on the way to the counting house.
It’s like this: A whole lot of people wanted to buy something, and the greedy people bought it up first, and will resell it to the first whole lot of people that wanted to buy it, but for more money than the Ming Dynasty had. The first group (whole lot of people -- well, at least a whole lot of the whole lot) will go ahead and sign over thousands of dollars and the pick of a litter of minks, to get the tickets because money is no object.
I already lived through this with Tickle Me Elmo. This is not new just because it’s blonde and can sing like Arial.
And what are we saying when we say “Money is no object”? I have never understood that phrase. Isn’t money an object? Isn’t it the thing that you hand over to someone else in exchange for a dishwasher or a tonsil removal or tickets to view through binoculars the most famous person since Moses?
Somewhere linked into the phrase “Money is no object” is a strong cognizance that money is indeed the only object that is going to make this happen.
So a lot of people are miffed. A lot of people are tiffed. And some of them are full-out swiffed. They didn’t get concert tickets. That’s wailable apparently, meaning you can wail about this and people will feel compassion for you.They didn’t get to go to a concert.
I’m just over here trying to compare the stacks of misery, and wondering how this is edging out -- oh I don’t know -- being laid off for a couple of months and trying to come up with rent money, having double knee-replacement surgery without anesthesia, winding down an interstate with a full bladder and passing a sign that says, “Next Exit, 42 Miles.” It’s not that I’m unsympathetic; I’m just thinking you can cheer yourself up with an Icee and get on with life.
After, of course, you demand an apology. Isn’t that what life’s become? Two major groups of human beings -- those apologizing, and those demanding that someone apologize?
I learned about supply and demand in a junior high economics unit. It has to do with the first problem heretofore mentioned in this treatise. The demand for concert tickets far exceeds the supply of seats in the auditorium. (Who ever once sat down in a concert?) Step two is that the suppliers apologize to the demanders, usually to the tune of “Money, it’s a hit” by Pink Floyd.
The problem with demanded apologies is that they usually are as heartfelt as a love affair between Rosie the Robot and a Solo cup.
So I guess it boils down to this: A few million people are getting to see a famous person sing for an hour or so after sitting through two hours of their life they can never get back listening to someone they’ve never heard of. A few gazillion people are hoping they’ll wake up from this nightmare and learn it’s not real -- and that there really are tickets available for the masses (and you can ride to the concert on the backs of turquoise unicorns).
And a few people are saying something like, “We formally apologize for the unforeseen problem which was not at all our fault, but for which we take full responsibility, but not liability. We are good people. Ask my mom.”
And under their breath, they mutter, “Look what you made me do.”
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