So, on a drizzly Sunday afternoon in late October of 1976, I did one of the most horrible things I have ever done in my life. In fact, it still haunts me to this day.
I was walking from the Longacre to the Plymouth Theatre to "second act" Godspell when I came across three tickets to Pippin just lying there on the sidewalk (in the rain) outside the Imperial Theatre. So I took them up to the box office to tell them I had found them, turn them in?.. whatever. But all the man at the ticket window would do was to tell me that three girls had purchased them a few minutes ago and that I should probably just check around out front.
So I stood out there in front of the theatre (for what must have been at least 10 minutes) half hoping those three girls would show up, while at the same time half wondering what I might be able to do with the tickets if they didn't...
So naturally, when a scalper came up and asked how many tickets I wanted to sell, of course I said... "Three?"... And then when he asked me if I'd take $5 a piece for them, which I quickly figured out to be fifteen dollars and more money than I had held in my hand in ages!.. of course I said... "Ok."
And then, wouldn't you know it... no more than ten seconds after "the transaction" had taken place, three young high school aged girls came running up to me, looking rather frantic, asking if I had found their tickets!.. and I looked at them as if I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about...
And since that day I have thought about that moment SO many times in my life, especially remembering how very, very shitty I felt afterwards! I've even told myself a million stories about how, even if I could have managed to find that scalper and tried to get those tickets back he probably wouldn't have sold them back to me. I also try telling myself that they were probably just a couple of really rich little girls from the suburbs... or maybe on a high school trip with lots of people looking out for them, and with lots of money from home in their pockets... and so surely they were able to grab a couple more tickets (to a show that hopefully wasn't sold out!) so that their day... or their trip of a lifetime wasn't completely ruined!
But nothing at all ever really helps ease the fact that I seriously did absolutely not a single thing at all to try to help... or fix it. I was only thinking of myself. And over the years that memory has never, EVER gone away, especially now, after having daughters and granddaughters of my own. (Because those girls were somebody's daughters and granddaughters!)
Granted, Broadway Show tickets were only around $20 at the time... and I was only, like, 22?.. But still.
Trust me, that fifteen dollars was definitely not, in ANY way, worth it!
So sad!
