love is the word

mission:

• give a stranger a free pair of tickets to the sf moma

this past saturday, i was lucky enough to catch the very tail end of the frida exhibit at the sf moma.  from what i know, the show was sold out, but i was able to get tickets from a limited pool saved for corporate members (a perk i get through my job).

i’ve never taken advantage of this perk – getting into the moma free.  all i was told is that you show your ID badge to get in free with one guest.  this friday i found out that they apparently print you two tickets.  “brilliant!” i thought.  “i can give away free tickets!”

so i made plans to go over to the moma sunday to try and get frida tickets for shak to see frida on closing day.  it took me nearly an hour to find parking in soma.  it was highly frustrating, especially since i had to go home to do work i had piled up.  but alas, i was to be patient because i was trying to do something nice.  was a struggle.

once i finally found a spot, i walked over to the moma membership table only to find that frida was sold out.  i ended up getting two general admission tickets.  i had made an agreement with shak that if i didn’t get her frida tickets for sunday, i’d get her general admission tickets for another day that suited her.

so i went outside to try and figure out who to give my tickets to.  i sort of stood around the perimeter of the building for a few minutes, trying to see who was trying to get into the museum.  there were a lot of people scattered about and i couldn’t really tell one way or another so i decided to approach people in line for tickets.

i caught a french couple at the end of the line: “are you trying to go see frida?” i asked.  they told me they were but it was sold out.  i told them i had general admission tickets if they wanted to see the other exhibits.  i was trying to hand the man the tickets but he hesitated as he didn’t seem to be sure what i was doing.  “wait.  you had extra tickets or something?”  i finally got him to grab the tickets.  “no,” i said.  “i’m trying to do something nice for someone everyday and decided that today i would give someone moma tickets for free.”  “oh, ok,” said the man, still somewhat unsure what i was saying, but happy he was getting free tickets.  the woman at this point went, “oh!” sounding pleasantly surprised.

they thanked me and delightfully made their way out of line and towards the museum doors.