Ticketless but lucky

Last night my beloved, her sister and another friend went to a fund raising concert for President Barack Obama.

We met in San Francisco following the directions provided to us by the creators of this event. There was only one way in and there were five lines to stand in that all lead to the same opening. We stood and we stood and we stood. For about two hours before the line started moving.

They would let a few people at a time through the gate and across the street where you stood again in another line so that you could go through security and get inside where we would stand for another four hours

Yea, this was a lot of standing and waiting in line. We finally got up to the front of the line when a woman pushed her way up to the front of the line. She was a street person I have seen around the city for years. She is usually high or drunk and can be quite confrontational. She had a bunch of flags in her hands and was chanting "I want to see the president"

One woman handling the crowd was saying that she needed a ticket. The woman got a little louder and tried to get beyond the barrier. The volunteer got a look on her face like "shit - what do I do"

Another woman came over, she had been standing inside the barricades and looked like she might be in charge. She whipped a ticket out of her bag and gave it to the woman telling her she would need to calm down to get inside.

I am not sure how I felt about this. On one hand we had been standing for hours at this point waiting patiently to get inside. We had paid a bunch of money to get in to this concert. We had followed all the rules and I felt as if none of that mattered. Why do things the way your are supposed to when you can push your way up to the front of the line cause a ruckus and get into something that you are not even supposed to get anywhere near without a ticket?

On the other hand. This was a woman that had no chance to ever get into a function like this? Someone that lives on the fringes of our lives. Someone that we all say we care about and is not as lucky as the rest of us in this line.

The woman that gave her the ticket was asked if she had any more tickets in that bag to give out. She smiled and said no. She just happened to have one extra ticket and what was she going to do with it? Keep it as a souvenir?

The recipient of the ticket was overwhelmed with the gesture. Most of us that witnessed it were conflicted about the gesture.

I would like to think I would have done the same thing, but I can't say for sure