David is in Paris and we were scheduled to see "The Magic Flute" at the Metropolitan Opera. Since we ran out of time to exchange them, we had the choice of donating them to the opera for a tax-deductible donation or scalping them. I decided it would be fun to try scalping.
Let me say, it was quite an adventure. As most things in New York, you show up and realize there are people that make their living in front of the opera house scalping tickets. I would not classify them as opera lovers. I also discovered that having really good seats is a liability in the scalping business. At least 20 people said they were interested until they saw the location and price of the ticket. Some people just walked away from me without a word. Most people laughed and said "I'm looking for something MUCH cheaper, thank you."
There was a woman there that was dressed like a homeless person. She was very short, pushy, and spoke with a craggly voice. She came up to me at least 5 times. The first couple of times she would say "I'll give you $40 for it." I told her no way. On the third time, she said "What do you want for it?" I gave her my price and she walked away in disgust. She came up a couple more times to say something like "What did you say you wanted for it? I'll give you half that." It was clear that she was just trying to re-sell the ticket and was hoping that I was gullible.
There was another man there that I was convinced was trying to steal the ticket from me. He came up to me very amicably and said that he was trying to sell a ticket too. He did not seem part of the "opera crowd" - more like the Port Authority bus terminal crowd. He started off by saying "There's a bunch of moochers out here tonight. They don't want to pay f-ing anything for a decent ticket. What ticket are you trying to sell?" I held up the ticket and he quickly tried to pull it out of my hand. I held onto the other side and wouldn't let go. He looked and walked away. A couple of times I noticed him showing me. At one point I had the ticket in my hand by my side. I turned around and he had apparently been right behind me. He quickly turned and walked away as if he had been minding his own business.
I ended up getting lucky. I sold one of the tickets for full price within the first 15 minutes of being there. It was another 45 minutes before I sold the other one and I only got half price. Still, it beat the price that we would have gotten if he had dontated the ticket.
