Listen...I am the last person in the world to advise anyone on their financial transactions. Sure, I was a certified Financial Planner (true story) for a short period of time, and I do contribute as much as possible to my 401k plan. But I also own a 5-foot wooden bear named Benjamin*** and I once spent my last dollar on a tequila-flavored lollipop at the liquor store when I couldn't scrape enough pennies together to buy a tall boy.
***To suggest I "own" Benjamin would be the wrong way to put it out there. He is every bit a member of the Meringolo family. He's like a brother to my son and daughter. He's been a trusted member of my inner circle since I was 19 years old. He sips on his mug of Honey in the corner of my basement, thankful for the peace and quiet that he struggled to find in my later college years when my roommates desperately wanted to turn him into a bong. Today, the greatness of the wisdom he imparts is exceeded only by his uncanny ability to avoid dry rot and cracking.
Where was I...
Oh yes. Are people really paying for their Redskins' season tickets by the March 1st deadline? I find this hard to believe. It is one thing to suck it up and stroke a check for a front row seat to the most loin-thwapping show in town every year. As a fanbase, we have very clearly demonstrated our appetite for the absurd, and our willingness to pay as much as humanly possible to witness it.
Today, I make no impassioned plea to my fellow fans to refuse to pay their season ticket invoices on the grounds that we simply can no longer financially support the nad-squeezing lunacy of what goes on at FedEx on Sundays each fall/winter. The truth is, I don't know how I would survive a football season without the thud of silence that at some point each year hits FedEex Field when the word "Stupid" gets redefined.
Instead, I simply have to ask...can you afford to prepay for games that may not get played? I can't. I know. I have done the math. I am getting 0.3% interest in a bank account right now. You think I can afford to give up that kind of sweet, sweet action?
We have been promised a refund for games not played. You can either get your money back or have that money applied to the 2012 season. But those games won't get cancelled until the last minute. Which means that your decision on what to do with that money won't hit your mailbox until the fall. Which means that Dan Snyder will be sitting on a mountain of our money from now until then. Of course, the question then becomes how long until you get your money back, and can you get sued? (OBJECTION...that was a low blow. Sustained. I'm going to ask that you all forget you read that. Like how you forgot that we traded Stephen Davis so that Trung Canidate could be our starting running back.)
It seems to me that we know and understand what is dumb. Hell, we freaking embrace it. But paying for a season that just about everyone agrees will be truncated--7 months in advance--strikes me as painfully dumb. The fans have no seat at the CBA negotiating table, but we are being asked to kick in our dough before any resolution comes? Wow...they really do think very little of us.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish paying online for Wizards playoff tickets. Don't worry...if they don't make the playoffs this year, the money I spent gets automatically applied to Nats playoff tickets.