Unmistakably extortion

I'm going to tell you the truth: it's not cheap being me. One of the reasons is that being a theater arts major (Really? Which restaurant?), and a lover of the thee-a-tah, I like going to plays. Not that I don't get enough drama in my real life. I work in advertising. I'm used to farce on a grand scale.

For me the stage holds a particular magic not found anywhere else.

Here's the other thing: I'm at a point in my life where, not only am I not willing to sit in the fourth balcony, I also won't beg, borrow, steal, wait, connive, cajole, call in favors and con people to get good seats.

I save that for Springsteen concerts.

Instead, I pony up the bucks and subscribe.

Now the alleged benefit of subscribing is you get better seats than the general public, and enjoy the same ones for each production. The most positive experience I've ever had with a subscription was the Shubert Theater in Century City. It's long gone, and in its place sits the Death Star (CAA). What the Shubert subscription gave me was killer seats - fourth row, dead center. Every season, every production.

When the Shubert went away, I became a subscriber to the Ahmanson Theater. I've been a subscriber over 10 years, and that entire time these have been my seats.

Fortunately the Ahmanson isn't a ginormous theater, so these are reasonably good.

However, each and every time we see a production there, I can't help noticing there are 17 rows in front of us, each one closer to the stage than we are.

But the Ahmanson wants to keep their subscribers happy.

So they enclose this form with the season subscription renewal that lets you check a box if you want to improve your seats by moving them closer to the front and center.

We've checked these boxes every year for ten years.

Guess where our seats are?

Really, who do you have to upstage around here to get better seats at this place?

I decided to read through the renewal package a bit more thoroughly. I thought somewhere inside there it might tell me how, after subscribing for 10 years (did I mention that?), I could guarantee myself better seats.

Well, of course it did. I just hadn't seen it before. Switch on the light bulb and cue the choir. Suddenly, it was all so very clear to me when I came upon this cheerily written yet profoundly disheartening little paragraph:

See the problem?

I thought by being a loyal subscriber for over a decade, at some point that loyalty would be rewarded with better seats. Come to find out that's not the way it works. Says right there in black and white you have to become a "donor" to get put on the "fast track" for better seats. It kind of begs the question: how much do you have to donate?

One year, we decided to test the waters and donated a tax-deductible $600 to see what that did for us.

Guess where our seats are?

Luckily, the Ahmanson provides a valuable service for its current and future subscribers. Instead of taking up valuable time making up your mind whether you want to donate and how much, they conveniently suggest a donation when you renew your subscription.

They even have a little box you check to show your desire to "support the theatre I love."

Funny, I thought that's what I've been doing for the last decade by subscribing.

And since I know $600 doesn't buy better seats, what exactly does their suggestion of $265 do besides prime the pump to get you in the habit of handing them money season after season.

Actually, if I'm going to be honest, the $600 we donated did buy us one thing: unrelenting calls for months on end at dinner time and weekends, sometimes three and four a week, asking us to donate more.

Thank God for caller I.D.

If the Ahmanson ever has a production where an actor has to portray a character who'd just as soon rob you than look at you, I know a great place they can research the part.

The subscription office.