Dude, Where's My Seats?

My sister is just in a tizzy. She's been in this tizzy for around six months, and she's something of a hyper woman anyway, so you can just imagine what it must be like to be around her when she gets on this one subject and gets all tizzied up.

The subject is seats.

Here's the story. My sister and her husband have been 4-seat Hokie football season ticketholders for somewhere around 20 years. It's been a long ritual of game-going for them. Finding two buddies to tag along with them to games, filling up their seats on the 45-yard line about 16 or so rows up. Primo, primo seats. Going to games during the gestation of Taytie, then taking him along with them as a baby, and toddler, having him get used to The Cannon (this would be the cannon the ROTCs fire up after every Hokie score), bringing him up to pray at the altar of Lane Stadium, Worsham Field, on Saturday afternoons, the two extra seats turning into one then to none as Taytie himself started bringing friends along.

It's funny, because I certainly like Hokie football, but I'm not gaga about it. I don't go all buggy over it or anything. And still I say one of the great experiences in this life is walking up the ramp at Lane Stadium, through the little tunnel, and emerging inside at Worsham Field. It's an awe-inspiring sight if you like college football, as we generally do here in The South. For over the years, Hokie football has become big-time college football indeed. The field is beautiful, the crowd is electric, the stadium is huge, the band is playing...well, you have to like that sort of thing, and I do, and it's just a great time.

And the sister and brother-in-law, and me to that certain auxiliary amount, have been Hokie fans for a long time. Through the lean years. Through the "Oh, my GOD, we got invited to the Independence Bowl!!" years. Through the "Oh, my GOD, if we could just get invited to the Independence Bowl!!" years. Through the "Who wants these extra tickets? Anyone, anyone?" years.

In other words, to put it into one sentence, my sister and brother-in-law have given one hell of a shitload of money to Virginia Tech for one hell of a shitload of a long time.

However.

Now the Hokies are in the definite fat years. They've been to the Orange Bowl, Fiesta, a few Gators, and three Sugar Bowls, one of which was for the National Championship. They've had the Vick years, and, if Vick the Younger doesn't get arrested again, will have a couple more Vick years. These are the years all those longtime fans and moneygivers have been waiting, hoping, and praying for. Praying for and paying for.

But as the saying goes, the fat get fatter.

Apparently in the world of Giving Money To Virginia Tech, for the past several years it's been like my favorite Creedence song, "Fortunate Son": when you ask 'em how much should you give, the only answer is more, more, more. And lots of people are giving more, more, more. But I think there comes a point where enough is enough, and my sibling and in-law have hit that point.

First came the fucking with their parking spots. For not giving more money, they've been moved from right next to the stadium to right across from the stadium to right down the street from the stadium to within walking distance to the stadium to within biking distance to the stadium to if you look real hard between those two trees you can see the flag at the top of the stadium if you have binoculars or very keen eyesight. But they took that in stride because at least once they finally made it to the stadium, their primo primo seats were right there waiting for them.

Oh, but this year. This was the year the Hokies started fucking with their seats. Well, everyone's seats, it's become quite the big topic of conversation in Hokieland.

This season it goes something like this: if you give enough money to VT, you get to pick what seats you want. If those seats are someone else's, tee hee, guess what, they move their asses, the seats are yours. As long as those seats are owned by someone who gave a dime less than you did.

And so, somewhere around 14 seconds after this new law was passed down, my dear sister and dear brother-in-law, who've given enough money to VT to build a small dorm on campus, lost their primo primo seats. And to this point, they don't even know where their new seats are going to be. They've been asked to be put on several prayer lists that the new seats will indeed be somewhere within Lane Stadium.

So just recently my sister was approached to give somewhere around $3500 to help sponsor the Hokies' coaches show on radio. I won't go into what her answer was, because although I have a mouth like a sailor, there are still some words I don't say.

But we decided what she needs to do is have her own show. Maybe on public access TV. It would be called "Where's My Seats?" and would consist of 15 minutes or a half-hour of people coming onto the show and telling where the seats they lost were, and where their new seats are. Then occasionally people would come out who gave more money and got better seats, and people would be allowed to kill them with sticks.

I'd watch it.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* That ended abruptly. Not not abruptly enough, probably.