Last night I went to see the University of Maryland basketball team take on the Demon Deacons of Wake Forrest in what turned out to be a pretty big victory for my Terps.
Thanks to my wife's cousin Peter, a student at UMD, I got to sit in the student section... We've done this a bunch of times before. I simply use the pass of a student who can't go to the game... Anyway, despite the fact that I'm 28 years old and wear a wedding ring, I've never had a problem getting in. They're supposed to check for student ID's, but I've never been asked to show one.
Last night was a different story... I walked up to the ticket checker trying to look as confident and student like as I could. I handed her my pass. She took a brief glance and just as I was about to walk past her she suddenly stopped me.
"Wait a second...you're Daniel?" she asked me.
Daniel must have been the name of the student who gave Peter pass I was using. I had never even looked at it.
"Yep," I confidently replied.
"Well, I'm going to need to see your student ID."
Gulp.
I went through the charade of fumbling for my wallet as if I might actually be able to somehow produce the ID... "I must have left it back at the dorms..." I heard myself sheepishly reply.
She just stared back at me blankly.
I didn't really know what to do at this point... I thought about breaking down and giving a tearful confession, I thought about running past her, I came up with about a dozen or so ideas... But in the end I decided that my best move would be to just stand there in a frozen panic.
After a minute of my panic, the ticket lady finally started laughing and said "Look buddy, I know you're not Daniel, so just show me your drivers license and I'll let you in..."
Relieved, I flashed her my drivers license and just as promised she let me through, still laughing as she handed the pass back to me.
I've gone through the student section a bunch of times with out being checked, so now I was curious to know what had tipped her off.
"So how did you know I wasn't Daniel?"
"Did you even look at the last name on that pass?" with disbelief in her voice.
For the first time that night I looked down at the pass and read the name.
Daniel Pham-Nguyen, Freshman
"So what are you saying, I don't look like an 18 year old Asian kid?"
Thanks to my wife's cousin Peter, a student at UMD, I got to sit in the student section... We've done this a bunch of times before. I simply use the pass of a student who can't go to the game... Anyway, despite the fact that I'm 28 years old and wear a wedding ring, I've never had a problem getting in. They're supposed to check for student ID's, but I've never been asked to show one.
Last night was a different story... I walked up to the ticket checker trying to look as confident and student like as I could. I handed her my pass. She took a brief glance and just as I was about to walk past her she suddenly stopped me.
"Wait a second...you're Daniel?" she asked me.
Daniel must have been the name of the student who gave Peter pass I was using. I had never even looked at it.
"Yep," I confidently replied.
"Well, I'm going to need to see your student ID."
Gulp.
I went through the charade of fumbling for my wallet as if I might actually be able to somehow produce the ID... "I must have left it back at the dorms..." I heard myself sheepishly reply.
She just stared back at me blankly.
I didn't really know what to do at this point... I thought about breaking down and giving a tearful confession, I thought about running past her, I came up with about a dozen or so ideas... But in the end I decided that my best move would be to just stand there in a frozen panic.
After a minute of my panic, the ticket lady finally started laughing and said "Look buddy, I know you're not Daniel, so just show me your drivers license and I'll let you in..."
Relieved, I flashed her my drivers license and just as promised she let me through, still laughing as she handed the pass back to me.
I've gone through the student section a bunch of times with out being checked, so now I was curious to know what had tipped her off.
"So how did you know I wasn't Daniel?"
"Did you even look at the last name on that pass?" with disbelief in her voice.
For the first time that night I looked down at the pass and read the name.
Daniel Pham-Nguyen, Freshman
"So what are you saying, I don't look like an 18 year old Asian kid?"
Posts
8 comments:
Ha!
I'm really surprised. In my experience, the Comcast ticket people are very rigid when it comes to checking student IDs against the names on the tickets. When getting in friends from other schools, we had to be careful to borrow the ticket AND student ID of someone who looked a lot like the sneaker-inner.
Why did she need to see your driver's license?
Hahahaha...you should have told her you love Pho, that makes you a Daniel. In my experience awkward situations like this are best handled by comedy. Making people laugh is very appreciated. The blank stare is a good second though.
that's hilarious. i guess you'll be looking at the name of the guy whose ticket you take next time. what if it were a woman???
I think UCLA is really big on checking student IDs. I know they check for non sporting events because I got a ticket to a reggae concert for my roommate. The ticket was free, but they didn't let her use it because she couldn't produce a BruinCard (and using mine just wouldn't work because we look nothing alike, kinda like you and the Vietnamese freshman). As for sports, last time I went to a UCLA basketball game, my friend had non student tickets for us (but why should that matter, since I'm still a student? oh well...).
lauren- i guess she wanted to see a drivers license just to see that i would show one and that i wasnt bin laden or something... idk... i wondered about that myself.
hp- a couple of years back i was totally addicted to Pho. me and the wife were hitting up this restaurant down the street 3 or 4 times a week. it went on for months and months... now we don't go as much and it's like a reunion when we go in. the owner comes out and everything. and the funny thing is that everybody but the owner and chef are from el salvador. in fact we found out that one of the waiters' mother lives like 2 blocks away from the house we own in san miguel... im rambling now, but Pho holds a special place in my heart. if i ever get divorced i might marry a Vietnamese woman just for the soup!
jenn- if i passed for Vietnamese i can pass for a woman, right?
cindy- i think Maryland used to be a lot more strict but we've had some bad luck since wining the National Championship back in 02 and now it seems like they're more relaxed. for some games students can even buy guest passes for non-students and in the glory days that was never the case. the student sections never had any room for guests even against the crappiest of schools. it hurts me to admit that.
You and me both. I used to go to this Pho place right on the corner of my intersection 3 or 4 times a week. It was everything you wanted in fast food: delicious, cheap and nutritious. An impossible combination to get at any other fast food place. I knew the owners (family owned) and often used the place to take dates for the same reasons above (though they didnt know it was cheap, many had never eaten Pho before). Here is a picture of Oso, Sparsh, and me at the place.
It was a match made in heaven until one day, about a year ago now, they moved because the rent went up on their lot. Now its some Afghanistan restaurant that I haven't tried yet. There are other Vietnamese restaurants around but none quite meet up to the level I had with this one.
A friend at work who married a Vietnamese girl keeps telling me he could hook me up with one of her family members, the whole male order bride thing. I have always told him no, but I might have to reconsider that. ;-)
Thats a great story, I'm just trying to picture your face when you saw the name.
HP- that place looks remarkably similar to the place the wife and I used to frequent... it's a shame they had to close up shop. I can't imagine myself being curious enough to venture into an Afghan restaurant. I can't even conjure a mental image of what a typical Afghan meal would consist of, but then again, it wasn't until a friend dragged me half-unwillingly into the Pho place that I discovered that life altering soup.
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