Or Johnny’s Half Shell! Allow me to explain why.

The wife and I had just got to the Strathmore Music Center. We were running late as we scampered to find our seats for last night’s Lyle Lovett concert. Carrie assumed the task of securing our seats. I headed to the restroom.

When Carrie got to our seats, she found that they were occupied. Now these were no ordinary seats. These were my birthday-present seats, located smack-dab in the middle of the first row of the Grand Tier. (The photo above gives you an idea of the view from these seats.) There was only one seat available, and Carrie took it, hoping to work out the problem. The occupants of the other seats started teasing Carrie:

Where is your husband going to sit? they wondered. (“On my lap,” Carrie told them.) What’s your husband’s name? (“Tim,” she said.) Well, maybe we don’t want Tim to sit with us; we like you better. (“No, you’ll like Tim, too,” Carrie added.)

They were having a jolly friggin’ time without me.

When I finally emerged from the restroom, the usher was still trying to sort out the seating snafu. The occupants rightfully had tickets to those seats, too, the usher told me. I was about to get annoyed by this double-booking when the usher finally figured out the problem: The seat squatters were supposed to be in the level above us. He promptly filed them out of our seats.

That’s when I really got a good look at who had stole our seats:

John Fulchino from Johnny’s Half Shell and Arianne and Scott Bennett from the Amsterdam Falafelshop.

As they sheepishly walked past me, I looked Arianne Bennett in the eye and said, “You know, this is so going to be a blog item tomorrow.” When I ran into them after the show, I added that they could expect awful reviews from this point out.

I was joking. I think.