Leaving Arrowhead Stadium after the Taylor Swift Eras concert was an event in itself.
Euphoric after the show, we all filed in a large group across the first parking lot that was just outside the stadium. We moved in and out between unmoving vehicles, singing Taylor’s songs, other patrons occasionally joining in.
“Oh man, I feel sorry for these cars,” I told the girls. “They aren’t getting out of here for hours!”
Then we looked ahead and saw hundreds of people stopped in a cluster around the entrance to the narrow, pedestrian bridge.
“Oh wow! We’re not getting out of here for hours!” one of them said.
It was one thing being in an assigned seat in an orderly concert filled with vast numbers of people, but was quite another being in a chaotic exit scene with swarms of people and immobile cars. And although we were enjoying the camaraderie in the parking lot, as claustrophobia began setting in, we started considering alternatives.
“Well, there’s got to be another way out, because all of these cars have to get out somehow.” Claire said. “Let’s keep walking and find that exit.”
“Good idea!” I said, and we began walking around the crowd, past the pedestrian tunnel, deciding to follow the 6-foot, chain link fence that lined the perimeter.
We looked down the length of the fence. It felt never-ending. We could see no exit in sight, and worse even, people were walking toward us from the length of that fence in an attempt to make it to the pedestrian bridge, making us pessimistic that the way we were attempting to go would offer us a way out.
Once we passed the throng of people and had a better view of the fence we saw a man at the top, swinging his leg over the backside. He jumped down onto the patchy grass on the other side and casually started walking toward the lower parking lot.
We looked at each other, then back at the crowded cluster of people gathered around the entrance to the pedestrian bridge, like ants swarming an anthill.
“Well, if he can do it…” Claire said, and started marching purposefully toward the fence. Chloe followed next.
“Umm,” I paused for a moment. Looking first toward the crowd, then down the length of the never-ending fence with no exit in sight.
Taking bold risks had gotten us this far.
By the time I reached the fence, both girls were already at the top, spectators watching the scene unfold. I felt a little childish and deviant, but also daring and adventurous. I hadn’t started out this escapade intending to scale fences with my daughters, but patience is not a virtue that I naturally possess. Also, I had been teaching the girls all night that when obstacles stand in your way, you clear them. So they did.
In that brief moment of time, a scene from one of my favorite movies, Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, popped into my head. The protagonist, Mahoney, played by Natalie Portman, expresses hesitation about pulling a harmless prank.
“I’m a little nervous about this,” she says with a grin to Mr Magorium, her whimsical mentor played by Dustin Hoffman. “Because it’s mischievous and childish.”
Then with childlike enthusiasm he excitedly replies, “I can hardly wait.”
Feeling much like Mahoney, I smiled to myself as I headed toward the fence.
The sociologist Robert K. Merton described delinquency as “a form of adaptive, problem-solving behavior, usually committed in response to problems involving frustrating and undesirable social environments.”
We certainly found ourselves in an undesirable social environment, and my girls had solved the problem. They cleared that fence like a hurdle.
The adrenaline from all the previous risks of the evening having already paid off, and the thrill of continuing our minor delinquencies with my teenage daughters took over.
Once they made it to the other side I quickly scaled the fence, one-handed until I got to the top because I was still holding the styrofoam containers of our concert food. In fast succession I made it to the top, handed them the food, and hopped over to the other side.
“Wow, you did that fast!” they said to me.
“You forget about my rock climbing days,” I winked at them, a playful reminder of my former exercise regimen at an indoor rock climbing facility near our house. I powered off toward the street and adjoining parking lot on the other side of the still congested pedestrian bridge.
Behind us we heard slightly more commotion and the occasional clinking of the fence, indicating that others were now following suit.
“Just keep walking” I told the girls with a mischievous smile as we crossed the busy road to the lot where our car was parked. “Good thing we were ahead of the curve before it gets out of control and someone puts a stop to it.”
I saw an article where “Kansas City police said they issued a few minor trespassing warnings, but there were no other issues” and laughed to myself wondering if that was this situation.
We made it to the getaway car, our trusty Subaru Ascent, in the lower parking lot in record time.
Now, another quick aside about me, I’m a total Subaru hipster, known to occasionally have conversations with random strangers at the gas station about their reliability, safety features, fuel efficiency, etc. anything, as long as it’s holding their interest. But one of the greatest features is it’s off-roading capabilities; I can’t even count the number of times that has come in handy for me.
I specifically got a Subaru for hopping curbs, so that I can do things like park in fields that smaller cars can’t get to at various events, or because I’m stuck in a line of immobile vehicles and can see a literal road to freedom just beyond a speed bump-sized slab of raised concrete.
We could continue following the trail of snail-like vehicles through the never-ending circular road of insanity, or…
We didn’t even have to confer about this one. The behavior was just expected at this point.
One final daring act of adventurous rule-bending led us out of the parking lot and to a completely clear road of travel on the twenty-minute drive back to the house.
When we got home and were snuggled up in bed recounting the evening, Claire got a text from a friend who had also been at the concert. She was still sitting deadlocked in the parking lot.
Sneak Peak of Part 4: “I Was Enchanted To Meet You” (The KC Chronicles)
This is the text from my best friend, Rachel, that popped through when I plugged in my phone after we got to the car
We discussed the concert, which turned into a discussion about the blog, and she referenced the story of Bree from one of my previous stories The Mother Road and told it better than I did, with more accurate detail! I was dumbfounded and appreciative.
“I told you I read every story! I’m your number one fan!”
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