In the many years pre-Kaia, Chris and I took advantage of a lot of inexpensive ticket offers at theaters across New York City. So many extremely affordable to downright cheap offers exist for those who are under the age cutoffs of 40, 35, and 30. First, Chris took advantage of them. Then, when he aged out of the cutoffs, he had me go buy the tickets for us. We’d get highly sought after seats at popular shows for next to nothing. During all that time, though, somehow I had forgotten about how I wanted to take advantage of the Under 40 Met offer, which is deeply discounted tickets for those under 40 (limit of two tickets) to see opera performances at the very famous Met Opera. When we think of the opera, we typically think of very old White people attending in their fanciest clothing. But as those people are eventually dying out, the arts scene needs younger people to fill those seats in (and pay those exorbitant ticket prices). To this day, I have still never seen any opera. So I wanted to do this just once to see how I might enjoy it.

A friend of mine who is over 40 told me she always meant to take advantage of the Under 40 tickets, but she had forgotten and alas, aged out. So she suggested I take advantage of it. I told her that I could actually get the tickets for both of us — we just had to agree on the show and a date, and I could even walk over to the box office to avoid the extra convenience surcharges. So we agreed to get tickets to Madama Butterfly in early January. I went to the box office this afternoon and asked for the Under 40 ticket pricing. And surprisingly, the agent gave me the paper tickets right away. I got confused since the policy online said they’d check my ID at Will-Call to ensure I was actually under 40. So I asked her about this.

“Oh, no. We don’t do that,” the agent said, laughing. “We actually are supposed to check your ID for your age when you purchase the tickets at the box office. But I took one look at you and thought, there’s no way this woman is over 40, so I believe you’re being honest!”

I laughed, thanked her, and went on my merry way. I’m finally taking advantage of the Under 40 Met tickets… for a show that is less than ten days before I actually turn 40. I told my friend about this encounter, and she told me that I could likely pull off being “under 40” for these discounted Met tickets for years and years to come!