Today I got my youth group together and took them to a free concert that Casting Crowns was putting on at their home church (as opposed to an arena) in celebration of their newest album being released. Evidently everyone else had the same idea.
The doors opened at 6pm, all 19 of us walked through the doors at 6:15 to find standing room only … and there was no standing room. I’m not kidding either. I walked down the aisles looking for open seats, not necessarily 19 seats together, but just anything, anywhere I could squirrel my kids. “Are those seats taken?” I’d ask, pointing to the 25+ open seats spanning two rows. “Yes” some punk said. Evidently he, by himself, was saving 25+ seats. Isn’t that illegal? I mean, isn’t there some sort of rule that says one person can save one seat? If there’s not then there should be and they should call it Ben’s Law. Hell, if they can try to pass a law saying that kids can’t show the tops of their boxers in public then surly something like this can be passed.
At any rate, there were no available seats 15 minutes after the doors opened. It was a complete joke. What a crock. I don’t really blame anyone as there’s no one to blame. I certainly can’t blame the band or the church. I guess it was just one of those series of unfortunate events 
. Wait, no, I can blame that dork who was saving 25 seats all by himself! And then I can blame myself for not laying the smack down on his … Well, you get the idea.
At this point I wasn’t about to take the kids back to the church. I had promised them a concert and I couldn’t deliver, I had to try to make it up to them. So I treated them all to gourmet pizza. It wasn’t the same as a concert but hey, the concert was free, the pizza cost me $113. I think they got a good deal. After pizza my guilt was still not fully assuaged so I took them to Starbucks.
All things told we had a great time even though the concert was a complete wash.
