It's Just Money

“Tickets! You need tickets? I got two of ‘em! Left corner in da Gonzaga section, $175 a piece. Come on man, take ‘em off my hands.” A fat man with French fries for hair says to us before we even get out of our car.

For full effect, download “Holy Moly” by Matthew E. White and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

Kids, I have seen some great sporting events in my lifetime. I sat courtside at the Delta Center to watch my beloved Utah Jazz dozens of times. I saw Big Papi go yard on the first pitch in the most beautiful baseball park in the West. I’ve had beer thrown on me while watching two of the greatest college basketball teams ever duke it out at the Final Four in San Antonio. I cheered with 108,000 other loyal Buckeyes and watched the best team in the country beat the tar out of the Bearcats. I have scalped and stubhubbed, finagled and fibbed to watch what I think God put on this Earth to make sure I wouldn’t lose my sanity; sports. And last night as we got out of the parking lot and had a fat man with beer on his breath breathing cheap seats down our throats, I added another story to my memoirs.

For the record I would like to make it very clear that I have no affiliation with the University that is associated with Brigham Young, a.k.a. The Provo Bubble’s Mecca, a.k.a. The Holy Land for Sheltered Idiots. With that being said, whenever they decide to play in the West Coast Conference Championship Basketball game against one of the most Bandwagoned teams in the country, you’re dang right I’m going to throw on a blue shirt and get in a car with my best friend and his Dad to go cheer for the Cougars. Somewhere in Northern Utah my Grandma fist bumped the air in elation at that last sentence.  

For the record, I would also like my children to know that I am anti-Gonzaga. Yeah, I’ll say that too. I flat out don’t like the Bulldogs. First of all have any of you been to the piece of belly button lint known as Spokane, Washington? On a scale of 1 to Cher, Spokane is as hideous as 80’s fashion on Meth. Second, any team that invokes a bandwagon/cult following because of a few upset wins over a decade ago does not deserve the national respect their rose-colored glasses are figmenting in their Jack Daniels-soaked, delusional minds. Third, they have a lousy long distance ed. program that purposefully gave my best friend 9K of debt and forced him to withdraw from their school because of piss-poor communication. Ironic that it was their Comm. program too! Fourth, have I mentioned that Spokane was ugly? Oh. I did? First reason? Well yeah, Spokane is the phlegm that a two-legged pug coughs up before breakfast.

Flashback to the parking lot of a second-tier Vegas casino where fattie fat fats with Boston accents were roaming around like mosquitos trying to pawn off tickets to foolish tourists holding red solo cups with watered-down beer in their hands.

“So 175 each. I’m tellin’ ya, it’s only gonna go up from ‘ere. Ya can’t fahnd a bettuh deal dan dat!” The balding French Fry wearing Miller High Life as cologne said to us. I looked at my best friend with the same face a little kid wears when he’s trying to protect an alibi for sneaking out of the house, and with that we shrugged him off and continued our quest for official places to plant our butts in the Orleans Arena.

“How much we looking to spend?” My best friend’s Dad asked. Which by the way, have I mentioned yet that this man’s name is Ivan? He sounds like a Polish monarch who just conquered Mongolia in a chariot with that kind of title.

“I don’t know? Are we wanting to dish out that kind of cash? I mean, I’m a fan of sports and all, but is it worth $150 bucks a ticket? I don’t know if I want to spend that kind of money.” I said. Which at that point in our deliberations, standing in a parking lot in the crust of Sodom and Gomorrah, Ivan the Brilliant said one of the most profound statements I have heard in my adult life.

“But it’s just money. I mean, you can’t take it with you.”

The three of us looked at each other, almost in a trance-like state as if the clouds had parted and some deeper meaning of life had just been wiped across our foreheads and the Scrooge McDucks inside our wallets had been shot in the chest. Without saying anything we found the nearest French Fry smelling like beer and shelled out $375 for fifth row tickets behind the bench. And you know what kids, it was glorious. One of the most entertaining sporting events I have ever had the privilege of witnessing.

Cut to three hours later where three men wearing blue shirts are running down the stairs to escape the drunken mob of Gonzaga fans wanting to revel in their victory. Yeah kids, it was THEIR victory. All 6,500 of them who made the pilgrimage in a drunken stupor to the city of sin to support their Bulldogs. Every single one of them had won they game! (Cue sarcastic font). Escaping into the Vegas night, Ivan looked at me.

“Well that was fun wasn’t it?” He said.

“Yep. $125 a piece fun!” Scrooge McDuck said back to him.

“Well hey, it’s just money. We’ll remember this game tonight for years to come. We sure as heck won’t remember our money.”

With those words, Ivan the Brilliant took a penny-pinching cartoon character out behind the woodshed and shot him right in the head. He was right, it was just money. And that game, regardless of the fact that the holy team from Utah County lost to a horde of drunken slobs, the three of us will talk about it for years.