It’s getting to where you can’t do shit in life without bending over and taking it up the pooper by someone trying to rape you for your money. Energy, milk, eggs, clothes, everything.

The latest thing to kill me is tickets. I went to buy a couple tickets to see Lewis Black when he comes to town next month and there is nearly $20 in fees tacked on PER TICKET. That’s almost half the cost for a seat. What the everloving fuck. I love Lewis, but he’s going to get fucked out of my ticket dollars because Ticketmaster is over-fucking me for the strip of paper to get into the building. Then again, Lewis charges quite a bit to see him, so fuck him too.

Another thing that’s pissing me off about tickets is baseball. The Orioles are averaging maybe 20,000 fans per game when the Yankees or Red Sox aren’t in town. Oriole Park holds 48,000. That means there are plenty of seats to go around.

So what does the team do? On its TV broadcasts, the announcers pimp tickets. But not through it’s own website (which is linked to Ticketmaster), which is ass-raping enough. They encourage the purchase of tickets through StubHub, which is a web site that is used to basically scalp tickets and is the “Official Fan to Fan Ticket Marketplace” of the Baltimore Orioles.

I did a little comparison. Through Ticketmaster, a field box ticket in section 44 to see the Orioles play the Detroit Tigers on July 18 is $64.25 ($55.00 + $5.75 “convenience” fee + $3.50 “processing” charge), with free shipping if you choose regular mail. In the same section — the same row, even — through StubHub, a ticket will run you $95.55 ($76.00 + $7.60 “commission” + $11.95 shipping).

$64 is ridiculous enough, especially if you want to take a family and sit in nice seats. But $95 is insane and completely unneccesary since tickets are readily available without dipping into the secondary market, and it’s even worse because this ass raping is heartily sanctioned by the team itself.

Even if you strip out the fees, how can the team justify someone spending $20 more per ticket for no good reason?

Luckily, with the Orioles at least, you can walk up to the stadium an hour before game time and get great seats at face value. But god help you if you try to plan ahead.

Only in America can preparing beforehand cost you far more than acting on impulse.