The Consequences of Injustice....

For Jenny's 40th birthday, this past Friday night I took her to see her favorite group, Sugarland. I'm no big fan, but she loves them. She happened to get us front row seats. During the warm up bands, I noticed that all the seats around us were taken, except for two at the end of our row, two seats to our left. Seats immediately to our right and left were filled with husbands and their wives. After listening to the two front bands, we took off for the restrooms. The line for hers was long, so Sugarland started playing before we got back to our seats. Within about two feet of reaching our seats, a security guard grabbed Jenny's arm about the same time another grabbed me, each saying that we couldn't go "that" way... we couldn't pass through the front row on the way to our seats. We were both close enough to see that someone was sitting in our seats, 3 feet away. The music was LOUD, and through it, I was telling, rather yellling at, the guy who grabbed me, that our seats were, as I pointed to the people sitting in them, RIGHT THERE! "You'll have to go around!" he shouted. A similar confrontation was taking place between Jenny and her accostor, I assumed, because I couldn't her it over the music. As I was pointing to the people in our seats, it crossed my mind that I recognized the two seat stealers.

More on them shortly.

I noticed out of the corner of my eye, that Jenny was having less success in pleading her arguement than I. My guy believed me after I showed him my ticket. An apparent organizer showed up and took Jenny and I aside and asked if we would sit next to our seats, two seats away. He would move the husband and wife that had previously been to our left, down two seats, and we would take theirs. Having finally decided I knew exactly who had taken our seats, I thought this arrangement would be fine. Jenny was, by this time, hell bent on righting the wrong, and in full warrior mode to make it happen. The organizer was trying his best to leave the perpetrators and move us two seats down, thinking everyone would finally be satisfied. All the while, Sugarland was playing their little hearts out, feet from us.

The male perpetrator's response to all this was "I just sit where they tell me", but said it to the husband to the right, who was actually pleading Jenny's case.... that the two perpertrators were in our seats. The perpetrator wouldn't look at Jenny, or I, but his wife was growing a bit uncomfortable with the "hell bent" part of Jenny's position, which I might add, was intense. The organizer was pleading for us to take the alternate seats.....did I mention they were the two adjacent seats to ours? The seats next to the seats the perp's had taken.

Finally, Jenny produced her ticket which resulted in two reactions. First, the large African American security guard let go of the tight grip he had on her arm. Second, the evidence was the final blow for the female perpertrator. That, and Jenny's vocal assertion that she had no intention of not sitting in the seats she bought for her 40th birthday. The female perp. finally could take no more. She grabbed her husband and moved to the seats to the left, where we had been asked to take.

Crisis absolved.

Jenny's pointed statement that she had no intention of giving up her seats, to her favorite band, in the middle of the front row, regardless of who had them, had taken their toll.

The perps ended up sitting just to our left, him next to me, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee. For two hours, not a word was spoken between us, the perpertrator and me. My silence was because I was a bit embarrassed over the whole thing. His, as I think about it now, may have been due to a fear of reprisal or physical altercation. The concert went on as normal, enjoyed by all, although I spent a majority of the time wondering what "they" were thinking, or whether they were plotting a revenge. Just before the end, the perps were led away, never a word spoken, save the "whoo-hoo's" he occasionally blurted. Jenny had long since dismissed the hard feelings and thoroughly enjoyed the concert. From seats she had purchased. She was satisfied.

It's that way for a person of principal. Life can be enjoyed when things are the way they should be.

I was left with the sense that the two probably may have never experienced not getting their way, not having to stoop to inhabit the same air as the commoners. But I think they also learned the consequences of not making things right, when they often should be made that way. Of course, I'm sure it often depends on with whom one is dealing. I could have told him. I could have warned him that there are some people that live by right and wrong, and that asking those individuals to live with things not being right leads to consequences.... every time.

Jenny is one of those people. Right will always be right. And wrong will always be wrong. And to someone who lives by principals, the players don't matter, no matter who they are. And with these principaled people, there are consequences for not participating in making things right.

The perpertrators? The two who stole someone else's seats, whose they didn't care, and were happy to leave the injustice unresolved? The two who came face to face with the consequences of asking a person of principal to look the other way?

As the organizer put it to me later... she'll always be able to say that she kicked out of his seat....

The honorable governor of the state of Oklahoma and his wife, Brad and Kim Henry......