GenCon 2009 Day 3: Another Day, Another Dollar…Less

Everything in Indianapolis is expensive. Everything! Except for Steak N’ Shake. Perhaps that’s why we ate just about all our meals there. Certainly Stef and I expected to pay out the patootie the four days we lived in the heart of the city, but $2.88 for one twelve ounce bottle of Coke? And that wasn’t even inside the convention center! Hey, we’re poor; we can complain about price gouging whenever we want…especially when we’re being ripped off. I’ll get to that later.

Day three began much the same way the first two did. This day we gave ourselves some time to practice our new and improved sales pitch. We had rehearsed it between each other, but now we would be able to test our pitch on potential readers. We were a little shaky, but once our confidence was more solid (and still we’re working on it!). Eat your heart out, door-to-door vacuum salesmen!

Crowd traffic was the heaviest it had been, as it was Saturday. Unfortunately, sales were not much different than the previous days. We had to hope that Sunday would truly be the day people spent their hard-earned cash.

And speaking of money, we got ripped off. One whole dollar! Quit snickering, this was a big deal to us, and as we soon found out, an even bigger deal to upper management monitoring the behind-the-scenes at the Indianapolis Convention Center. The indoor food court just outside the exhibitors’ hall was manned by a group of people who could not care less about what was transpiring around them. What they did care about was taking your order, slapping a pile of costly gruel on your plate, and shoving you off. That’s fine by me, but I didn’t expect to be hit by a hidden fee (you know, the kind you’re slipped when you purchase a concert ticket).

Soft pretzels cost $3.50 at the concession stand—fairly expensive but not altogether unreasonable…I guess. Mine cost me $4.50. Allow me to explain before you curse me out for being a dupe. Lines for food stretch forever at all times inside the convention center, and my partner was left alone, fending for herself against the savvy gamers. I’m in a hurry. There are four food stands, each with their own separate lines. The line I’m in has soft pretzels on the menu, but I’m told by the attendant that there are none. I want my pretzel, so I slide down to the lady at the register and ask her to check and see if there is any salty, doughy goodness left. Glancing to her right she confirms that the adjacent stand does indeed have pretzels. Happy as a clam, I ask her to hook me up. She tells me that it’ll be $3.50 plus a dollar. Ignoring her, I hand her the correct amount. She repeats, “$3.50 plus a dollar.” I ask why that should be, and she tells me her register can’t tender out pretzels; she would have to ring it out on the adjacent one. That’s where George Washington fits. Are we lost yet?

In a hurry and not thinking clearly, I pass her the extra single and turn away feeling a tad angry. OK, I was furious, but I didn’t realize what had happened until I explained my situation to Stef. We talked it over and realized that not only had I just been scammed, but the lady had pocketed the rest of my cash as well. Matt and the convention center had just been robbed of $4.50! Seeing that I was considering waiting to take any action, Stef excuses herself to use the bathroom and vanishes for an hour. Gee, I wonder where she went?

To make a long story short (too late), Stef contacted the proper authorities—who, by the way, were glad she came forward. Seems our petty thief had been under suspicion for some time. Unfortunately no one had come forward and pointed their finger…until now! We got our dollar back, though we never did learn the outcome of member number fourteen of Ocean’s elite group of thieves. The matter was “taken care of”, and later that evening we were treated our very own filk concert courtesy of C.S. Marks. But that’s a story for another time.

-Matt