The Killing Joke

I took friday off and Michele and I took our niece Rachel (names used with permission) to Minneapolis to see Tim McGraw and Faith Hill in concert at the Xcel Energy Center. It was a very good concert and we had incredible seats thanks to Michele's (name used with permission) excellent Ticket Master skills. We were only 4 or 5 rows away from one edge of their raised, cross-shaped stage. I could have taken 3 steps and been on the stage if I didn't mind stepping on drunk teens (maybe twenty somethings - I dunno, I'm getting old) and 300 pound rednecks (male and female). Let's just say these country music stars were within spittin' distance.
We did make one mistake. We only left an hour early for the concert. It was 10 miles from the hotel and we covered 8.25 miles in 13 minutes. At 6:43 pm, with the concert starting at 7:30, I was on the shoulder of the road in the line of cars waiting to go up the exit ramp at Kellog Street 1.75 miles away. At 8:00 pm I got to the top of the exit ramp and was able to turn on Kellog but we still had to find a place to park. After parking and walking back to the Xcel Energy Center, it was 8:25 or so. No big deal. We missed the opening act. We didn't know there was an opening act but we missed it. We got to our seats just as she was finishing her last song. That didn't bother us.
What did bother us was the drunk girl in the seat right next to our three. The seats in that place are jammed in like coach seating on a discount airline. You don't get to your seat unless everyone who's already in the row stands up. This drunk girl -- a rather big drunk girl -- was too inebriated to stand up. That's what she told me on her 3rd attempt at standing: "I'm too drunk to stand up", which I guess meant -- since she had to be from Minnesota, Iowa or South Dakota -- she thought I was good looking and she was looking for a piece of ass. I said "I can't get to my seat" meaning 'you're fat, you're drunk and you're in my fucking way (I'm here with my fiance)'. Her friend helped her stand up and we went to our seats. The music does a big crescendo and stops; someone goes "you guys have been great, thank you, good night" into the microphone; the lights come up and we sit down - me, Rachel, Michele (names used with permission) and the drunk girl. We weren't sitting down for two minutes when I see Michele (name used with permission) spin around in her seat and then shoot to her feet. I look over and there's drunk girl vomitting into a plastic beer cup (it didn't all fit). I stand up. Michele (name used with permission)says "I need security. I'm not sitting next to that." We look over and drunk girl says "no, it's all right" and then spills part of the contents of the beer cup on herself. She then tries to set it down which involved spilling some on the empty seat between her and Michele (name used with permission), some on the floor and the by now mostly empty cup was put in the cup holder in front of her seat. Drunk girls friends finally finish chewing their cuds and look over. Michele (name used with permission) said loudly "I'm getting security". They look at drunk girl and her mess and somehow organize to pry her up and get her verticle. Then using a sack of grain with molasses drizzled on it they lead her up the stairs to a holding pen somewhere. I don't know where they went but drunk girl and one of her friends didn't come back until the concert was half over. At $80 a pop for tickets, that must have been some pretty damn good booze and one very good friend.
The concert started shortly thereafter with a Tim and Faith duet, then Faith did her set, then some more duets, then Tim did his set, then some more duets. I didn't get over until after 11:00. It was very good and we enjoyed it alot.
The next day we went to the Mall of America. I met Chris Loomis (name used with indifference) at Barnes and Noble. He had purchased Looney Tunes Golden Colleciton Vol 3 for me some months before when B&N was having a buy one get on free sale and everything in the store was 10% off. It only cost me $30 and it's usually $65. I paid him for that and then we went into B&N to look around. We ended up back by the dvd's again. The were having a buy 2 get 1 free sale and everything was 10% off again. I ended up buying Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol 1, Vol 2 and Vol 4 for $112. That's over 24 hours of Warner Bros. cartoons and they're not all cut up like they are when they show them on TV these days. Chris (name used with indifference) and I just wandered around the mall and BS'ed while the girls shopped and rode rides at the amusement park formerly known as Camp Snoopy (what is it about Minneapolis and these stupid names?).
It was a pretty fun weekend.