One of my biggest pet peeves is people who knowingly sit in the wrong seat at ticketed events. We’ve all sat in the wrong seat by accident. I’m not referring to that here. I’m talking about the people who purposely sit in the wrong seat.

You know the scenario – you are walking to your seat – scanning for your row and you see someone sitting in what might be your seat. You get there and sure enough, someone is in your seat. Thing is, they’ve have seen you coming but don’t bother to move, just in case, your seat might just be close by. You get there – check your ticket, check the row, check the seat. Then the inevitable “I think this is my seat.”

Response varies – “Oh, sorry.” And they move.

“Oh, yeah, I wanted to sit here so I can sit with (blank).” (Who cares? Just move)

Or no verbal acknowledgement at all. They just get up and move.  I’ve seen and experienced it all.

Yesterday, for example, I watched a woman and her friend approach a guy who was sitting in one of their seats at the Caps game. She said nicely “We have these seats.” He said “Yeah, my seats are down there.” and pointed down the row. Silence. She was obviously waiting for him to get up and he was obviously not going to do so. She finally muttered something and sat in the row in front of him.

One time we went to an O’s game and a guy was sitting in one of our seats. He saw us coming – saw the scanning of the rows and seats. Saw us looking. We got to our row, said we had that seat and he moved over ONE seat. He acted like we had displaced him from his rightful throne.

When I have to ask people to move, it ruins the experience for me. I’m all excited to go somewhere and then boom, I have to have an awkward confrontation. If you want a specific seat, then buy it. It is that simple.