Inner Schwonker

 

One of the few good things about getting older is that you find acceptance for the things that seemed so important only a few short years ago. For example the size of my bum, I have come to accept its expansion and jelly like quality, I don’t love it but I’ve accepted most of the time I can’t even see it so really, it seems like someone else’s problem. So my blessings are many and apart from really, really wanting someone to magically appear and clean my house on a semi regular basis, ok daily basis, I thought I was quite zen as a human being. Of course that was before I got my access all areas at a recent Coldplay concert, that is where my zen went out the window and my inner schwonker reared it’s ugly head.

This will really piss of hardcore Coldplay fans but I’m really only a “yeah I really like them”, “they’re great, really talented”, but I really only know their songs from what I hear around. So no I don’t know what they’re latest album was called or even what the bass player or drummers name is but I didn’t have to because one of my besties had chosen me and two others to go with her to their concert and use her access all areas passes.

The cosmic forces had come together, my wonderful friend had reunited with her old friend who just happened to be coming to our home town and as luck would have it he was to be an important part of the Coldplay tour. So through sheer luck and friendship I found myself at the Coldplay concert for free and oh did I mention with an access all areas pass!

While we were waiting for our Coldplay connection to come and bestow upon us our pass we traded stories about tragic concert behaviour we had done in our past. Yeah that’s right we were trying to keep it cool, real cool but I swear to you the moment that access all area pass was taped around our wrist there was a bit more swagger in our step. We were ushered through the backstage area straight onto the floor area, right in front of stage. I’d like to say that I didn’t notice people see us being ushered in and then have things pointed out to us, but I did indeed notice and I did indeed like it.

So my chest was a little more puffed up with self importance, sure we were probably not the only ones walking around with these passes, there may have been even better passes than these ones but we didn’t care, we had access to all areas. Of course we found out soon enough that “all” didn’t actually mean complete rockstar access, we were hardly hanging out with the band in their dressing rooms but it was the closest I’d ever been to the inner sanctum of a band.

We decided to celebrate our upgraded status with some bubbly, so while we were waiting in the line my mind drifted to the alternate universe where our all area pass was spotted by one of the officials, he rushes forward, while he offers apologies for not noticing earlier how important we are he whisks us to a secret door, they’ll be no watered down, over priced substandard drinks tonight for us. Oh yeah this is how it’s meant to be, privilege and power, this is good, this is…

“What do you want?” the disinterested bargirl asks.

Ripped out of my dream world into reality I hand over way too much money for drinks with way too little alcohol content. With watered down drinks in hand we head back to the our prime positions, we glide past the people who probably paid a fairly hefty amount and more than likely spent a lot of time on the phone or computer hitting the redial or refresh button trying to get their seats. See you later suckers, sure your seats are good but they’re not access all areas, alright I’m not drunk enough yet to say anything as obnoxious as that but I think the way I casually shift my pass up and down my arm they can they get the message.

I notice that the gals I’m with are playing it a little cooler than me so I stop what is potentially becoming an OCD thing and stop moving the pass up and down my arm. While I’m deciding what level of obnoxiousness is suitable at this time of the night I notice the line we’re in has stopped moving. I lean forward to one of my gal pals and say

“There really should be a separate line for access all area passes.”

Whatever level of obnoxiousness I was contemplating before has been knocked out of the park because there is now a new level, and its name is schwonker. To my delight my gal pal smiles and agrees so I know she too has joined the club.

The line starts moving again and we are about to go through the gates taking us to our prime position.

“You can’t go in there.” a burly security guard blocks our path.

Now if you were interested in human behaviour you would be fascinated by the next turn of events. One of us stood there open mouthed, looking confused, one instantly went into game on mode and the other tipsy from skulling her overpriced cheap wine stepped forward and said one of the most schwonkiest things you could say.

“ Don’t you know who I am?”

In the cold light of day without access all areas bands on I would never ask anyone this question because quite frankly I’m not sure I’d want to know their response! On the other hand my inner schwonker has no problem asking it. My blessing is that my question was drowned out by the music starting and my girlfriend having a heated argument with the security guard about the definition of the word all.

I’d like to say I returned to my zen self when I got home but I’ll admit I did wear a t-shirt and “forget” to cut my wrist band for a couple of days afterwards. My inner schwonker milked that access all areas band for more days than was really right to do so. Inner shwonker has been contained now but I know that given the right circumstances it could rear it’s ugly head at any opportunity!!