Concessions people: No, no, no, no.

I went to a martial arts tournament today in Springfield, and my only major gripe with the it was the concessions.

The Lincoln Land Community College volleyball team serves food throughout the day while raising money for their team in the process. I walked up with my meal ticket – one of the perks of being a judge – which was good for an entree, a bag of chips and a drink.
I already had a drink, so I asked the volleyball player if I could just substitute that for another entree.

“No.”

Okay, I’ll just buy the second entree (which are, keep in mind – a hot dog, slide of pizza and brat – all hardly entrees). So I asked for a hot dog and some cheese pizza.

“We’re out of cheeze pizza, but you can just pick the pepperoni off.”

Well, I didn’t ask for pepperoni. I asked for cheese. What about a hot dog and a soft pretzel?

“We’re out of pretzels.”

My options were pretty slim by this point. I’d grabbed the hot dog I’d asked for – they had a bunch of those, actually, but I felt that if I hadn’t grabbed it, they may have taken that away from me too – and the lone bag of pretzels sitting in a box I’d estimate could’ve held 20 of said packages. One of the girls told me they had Doritos, but I decided to go with the healthier option, until I realized the bag was dated “FEB 16 2011.” I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the date was the “best before” date, but I was so hungry that I didn’t care.

I also began to wonder how these girls played volleyball. I imagine they would show up with only one pair of kneepads for the whole team while hitting a deflated ball, short shorts ripping down the back as one of the girls spikes the ball down on the other team.

It turns out while I was stewing over my lack of entree options by this point in the day, somebody had actually microwaved a soft pretzel for me. But they went to grab the cheese for it, and the bag the cheese was supposed to pour from was near empty. So empty, in fact, two of the volleyball players had to grab it and sputter out enough cheese to fill half of the space allotted for it in its plastic container.

Luckily, I had just enough cheese in which to dip my pretzel.