Michael O.
Yelp
I thought the legendary "Karen" was just that -- the stuff of urban legend -- American folklore, like Bigfoot, or chupacabra. Or at the very least, a real but mysterious beast, like those deep-sea giant squids that we know exist, but which have never been observed alive, in the wild. Until some Japanese fishermen harpoon one, and capture the footage with their fine Japanese-made cell phone cameras.
But at the Pretenders concert last night, I witnessed 2 -- yes, that's right -- 2 -- sightings of the legendary Karen. Rather well-off, 60-ish ladies who had made the mistake of purchasing their concert tickets through a third-party vendor (not Ticketmaster). That vendor had screwed up their tickets.
And I know exactly how much these ladies paid for their tickets, because as they verbally assaulted stellar Chicago theater employee Tristyn (that may be phonetic), they informed everyone within a two-block radius how much they paid for their tickets - the tickets that were screwed up by the vendor, not the Chicago Theater, and not Ticketmaster. The tickets that would NOT get them in to see what turned out to be a very fine show by Chrissy Hynde and company.
Tristyn saved me, though. Me, who made the mistake of not downloading the Ticketmaster app before I got in line. And because of a problem with my Gmail account, I had virtually no hope of saving the day. Tristyn realized that I was screwed up beyond belief, cut through the Gordian knot, took me right through the crowd to the ticket window and made sure that I got my tickets that were findable by my last name. I ended up with good old-fashioned paper tickets. Missed only one song. Tristyn did all of this for me, while simultaneously fending off two separate Karen attacks. And he could not have been more courteous to these ladies -- who could not have been any more discourteous to him
Tristyn, you saved the day. For me, at least. But carry a can of Karen repellent, next time.