Hardball

If you know my husband, you know he is a good negotiator. Beyond good, really. So good I am embarassed to go with him when he is returning something at the store. I usually walk around outside in silent shame until the deed is done.

Along these lines, I was reminded of a funny story from our time in D.C. We went to a Washington Nationals game during our visit and planned on either scalping some tickets or buying some at the ticket office. (The game was far from sold out - the Nationals are pretty terrible.) We ran into an older gentleman who asked us if we wanted to buy his tickets along the third base line. He said, "face value is $50 per ticket, and I will give them to you for $50". I am thinking, "Score! Two tickets for the price of one". Travis, on the other hand, is thinking "No way I am buying these tickets for face value, you idiot". He apparently didn't realize he meant BOTH tickets for $50 total. Seeing Travis's hesitation, the nice man said, "ok, $40 then". Travis, shrugged and said, "alright, that sounds good", and proceeded to hand the guy $80 cash. And then there was this moment of inner turmoil as I saw what was about to happen.

To sum it up, Travis was super embarassed that he strong armed a nice man into giving us $100 worth of tickets for $40 instead of $50. And to make matters worse, our newly purchased tickets were right next to the nice man and his wife. Luckily, the guy was cool about it and we bought him a Coors Light as a peace offering.

Next time Trav may think twice before playing hardball.

But probably not.