Reader Email - My Friend's Grandfather Just Died, Can I Ask Him For His Tickets To This Saturday's Michigan/MSU Game?

Big Cat1/24/2014 9:40 PM

Big Cat,

A buddy of mine and his wife are flying in to detroit for this weekends mich/msu college hoops game at the breslin. his grandpa died this morning. very sad. But with tickets being outrageously expensive on stubhub and the fact hes not jewish leaving sat/sun for the funeral and family time, how do i ask the status of the tickets? when do i ask? east lansing and detroit is only an hour drive so very possible chance he may go. but then again they were very close and sometimes its hard to get hype when people die. really not sure here. thx

msj

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This email made me laugh. That’s just a regular passionate sports fan to the core. Even threw in the “very sad”, almost like Ricky Bobby saying “with all due respect”. I said very sad, I recognized that there needed to be some empathy, whether fake or real that was acknowledged, now how about those tickets?

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So to answer the question here’s what you have to do. First you have to see him person. If you call your friend on the phone and bring up tickets after his grandfather died you’re a fucking asshole. Well you’re an asshole probably either way but at least let’s be a tactful asshole. That’s sort of my life motto, tactful assholeyness. Anyway, back to the tickets. You go see your friend in person, you bring flowers, you bring a bottle of booze, you bring your best soft “someone just died” voice. And you don’t ask for the tickets, you never outright ask for them. You bring up the game, you talk about the match-up, you say something like “I may try to go scalp tickets and if I do I’ll make sure to text you” and then you’re friend says you know what, I’ll sell you mine right now and you refuse, and then he insists, and then you accept.

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Then you go to the game and you party your ass off but you do it all in memory of grandpa, but don’t too much in memory of him because like you said, it’s hard to get hyped when people die and we don’t want some old guy’s death ruining your good time. Now that would be, very sad.

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What do Stoolies think 1 for never ask, 10 for bring it up casually and hope they’re offered to you.

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