My Spring Weekend probably went a little differently than yours. While you were pregaming with friends, bedecked in your finery of crop tops and glittering body decals, discussing lettuce as a motif in Mac Demarco music videos in a mental state that was likely not sober, I was spending the day in a different way. I was putting on comfortable shoes and a hideous orange t-shirt adorned with the word STAFF. (Orange is not even remotely my color). That’s right: while you were partying, I was preparing. Preparing to scan your Spring Weekend concert ticket.
Tinashe may have been the uncontested heroine of spring weekend, but we ticket scanners were the other heroines, the quiet, unsung heroines. And sure, scanning tickets wasn’t that “wild,” or “legendary,” or whatever. But it had its moments. And by the end, I think I actually enjoyed myself.
There was an air of festivity in the ticketing line. Most people I cheerfully greeted with a big smile, and the glow of my orange t-shirt even seemed downright jovial. Over the course of two nights, I got many kisses on the cheek and many hugs, some from strangers. One kind boy gave me a hug because he saw that I was cold. Another hugged me because he was having drunken difficulties finding his ticket, and I helped him through that dark, dark time.
Two different boys told me they loved me, which was a great confidence boost.
One girl whose earrings I complimented cradled my face in her hands and said, “You are soooo beautiful.”
Not everyone was in this mental, emotional, and spiritual place of generosity, though, and some people struggled through the line. When I asked one girl to show me her ticket, she exclaimed in exasperation, “It won’t work!” I looked down at her phone. She was repeatedly attempting to update her Amazon Kindle app. “Your ticket,” I said, but her thumb kept robotically hitting “UPDATE.”
By the end of each night, my face hurt from smiling, and my feet hurt from bearing the bracing impact of so many hugs, but I felt a part of something more, of something bigger than you or me. I felt a part of SW16, fueled by the energy of hundreds of substance-altered, excited youths.
You might expect that after all that work I would go out and have some fun. But I ended up being so exhausted that I fell asleep before 11:30 both nights, because I am a true grandma at heart.
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