[1206] Bet

I’m not going to pretend like I don’t have days where I simply feel aggressive or like I want to fight. They are few and far between, but they happen. I don’t know if it’s a guy thing, or a me thing. What’s important for our purpose of writing today is that it’s not some innate and persistent hunger. I’m not trying to fight. I’m not desperately waiting for permission to be an asshole. I’m loathe to accept the invitation.

If you’ve been to a concert in the last few years, you’ve no doubt read the words that go something like “no refunds under any circumstances.” Weather rains out the show? It also washes the organizers’ hands of responsibility. You get sick? Ha! Go fuck yourself on that one in particular. They move the date and time? At this point, you’re not even talking about having made a real purchase with any genuine intention nor can you take any real responsibility unless you think literally all money spending is akin to gambling.

When I reach out because a date has moved, relatively last minute, months later, and to a date I know I can’t make, you are obligated to refund that money. You are obligated to refund that money because it’s not a fucking complicated thought experiment or rumination on morality. You’re obligated to return that money because you offered a service, production, show, whatever descriptor you wish to apply, and then do not intend to deliver on it. You’re not performing in my backyard on my timeline. You’re obligating me to plan on meeting the conditions of your venue. When you don’t meet your own conditions, you’ve violated the contract.

When you respond to my outreach with “No refunds, I’m sorry. Policy. Yada yada bullshit.” You’re inviting a kind of retribution and drama that is unbelievably unnecessary but for how it speaks to how and whether we’re able to exist with each other altogether. I’m decently disagreeable and have a vengeful spirit. I didn’t earn them, I think I was born that way. When you want to pretend like I’m crazy or entitled in wanting my earned money back for a thing you can no longer provide, I want to destroy you. I want to sabotage your toilet. Steal your shit. Throw a baseball through the window…you get the picture.

What I fail to understand is your lack of imagination. Are we living in a world so devoid of consequences? I think the answer is yes, but I maintain, I don’t care how ridiculous and backwards we get, I will remain of consequence. I will maintain a standard of reason and fairness. If you can’t get on the same page of polite exchange, I’m going to give you precisely what you don’t want and take considerably more from you than what constitutes a loss from me. You must understand, I’m defending civil society at this point. I didn’t hunt you like some crazed ideologue. I was invited by you to enjoy a show, and then you shit in my face.

Hyperbolic language is fun sometimes. But the point I think is sane and salient. I spend my time often encouraging people to not prioritize vengeance or repeat the stories of the injustices they’ve experienced on a loop. They don’t often grasp the nature of what they’re suffering in staying stuck on certain narratives. I know precisely the nature of my struggle and why “small” things need big defenses or reactions. I don't let the slow-creep of what’s essentially social suicide go ignored.

In the meantime, I’ve disputed the charge with my credit card company, filed a Better Business Bureau complaint, negatively rated their facebook and Google pages, emailed, messaged on facebook and Instagram, and am fully prepared to aggressively knock on a window and demand a manager every day like my name is Karen. We cannot keep putting up with this bullshit people. You cannot keep feeling the license to conduct yourself in a way that justifies this behavior. The irony of how often I’ll need to scream that at myself when my retributive self turns cartoonish is not lost on me. No less, I refuse to be a martyr for ambivalent selfish exploitation. I bet I value fucking up your way of operating more than you do my money.