80. By my best count, that's how many Virtual Waiting Rooms I had open in my quest to enter the inner sanctum of the financial prison rape that is Cubs Ticketing. But since I entered into the relationship willingly, I'll never be able to press charges.
The exact cents come up a bit short, but the long and short of it is this: $5 per ticket convenience fee (which I find decidedly inconvenient . . . hmm, this post is turning into an extended allusion to the Shawshank Redemption), $4 processing fee, and a $2.50 "print at home" fee. Now, the sisters over at tickets.com would have to force me to agree to that little twist, since receiving the tickets by mail is absolutely free. I know it would be cheaper just to show up at Wrigley and buy the tickets myself. But the sheer audacity displayed by the Chicago National League ball club should be expressly prohibited. It's insulting. It's demeaning. It's despicable.
Yet somehow I found myself submitting to it all like a frat pledge. And they say the people most likely to abuse are those who have been abused themselves--sure enough, I found myself on StubHub just a few short hours later, trying to see if some poor sucker would be willing to let me do the same to them.
How many more lives have to be ruined before we wise up?!?
