Hard Charger

That’s my new favorite compliment. Hard Charger. As in, “Hey there hard charger, how’s she going?” I love it. Awesome. No, nobody’s said it to me yet, it’s just a third-hand compliment given to somebody else and told to me by another, but it still rules. Look for ‘hard charger’ to replace my current generic names of ‘chief’, ‘buddy’ and ‘guy’ over the next while. I’m certain that it could replace “legend’ as my favorite generic person-calling term. But it’ll be a showdown, for sure.

So anyhow, in other news, I’m currently not employed by Best Buy but it looks like I am. This marketing company got hired by Best Buy to find staff for Best Buy’s grand opening weekend and then they hired me. My job is to ‘handle’ the first 150 people that arrive at the Best Buy location in a Montreal suburb called Pointe Claire, on Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs this week and force them to stand in the cold driving rain until noon. Yes, you could say that it’s hard charging rain – feel free. So, those lucky/stupid enough to be one of the first 150 in the line at noon get a free pair of tickets to the Black Eyed Peas concert at the Bell Centre this Sunday night. All seven Best Buy locations in Montreal are hooking up free tickets. Best Buy is paying for the entire concert and there’s no place to buy tickets.

Enter the scalpers. Surprising how easy it is to pick out scalpers from Black Eyed Peas fans.

Scalpers wear ripped Cannibal Corpse hoodies and say things like “So I got here at 11 last night and played dice with the security guard. I took him for thirty bucks. If you can score me an extra pair of floor seats, I’ll give you the cash. No wait, I’ll give you 25, I gotta buy smokes too bro. Hey, I’ll score you a grilled cheese sandwich too, my buddy’s got a George Foreman grill rigged up to his cigarette lighter in his Cavalier. It’s broke right now, but I think we can fix it before noon.”

Black Eyed Peas fans wear GAP track suits and drive a shiny Toyota Camry with a bumper sticker that reads ‘Philipino Crusaders for Christ’. Conversations usually consist of many ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’ and their personal dilemma is always between “Should I see the show myself” or “Should I auction off my free tickets to raise money for my cousin’s Habitat for Humanity project in Cebu.

Both freeze their ass off.

Montreal is like the coldest city in North America but I’m continually amazed by the ability of Montrealers to put themselves in a near hypothermic state for free concert tickets. Funny how “I’ll be fine, cold doesn’t bother me” doesn’t pan out after 5 hours under windblown sleet wearing little more than a sweatshirt and a pair of Capri pants - especially when you’re 70 years old. People are stupid. I’m 100% certain that a mother is confronting her son with the following: “Sorry Dylan, I know that Grandpa wanted to see how Fergie got all that ass inside them jeans as much as you do, but you’ll have to find somebody to go to see the Black Eyes Peepers. Grandpa’s dead.”

But it’s not easy to stop a hard charger, especially when there’s free concert tickets on the line.