“You ever work in the armored ticket truck business before? It’s an easy gig. All we do is distribute all the new concert tickets to the local Ticketmaster outlets. That’s right, tickets for shows like Statistics, The Thrills and Sarah McLachlan. Uh, you wanna watch where you point that Uzi?

“What’s that? Have we ever been robbed? Ha! The stories I could tell. Like that time we were carrying a load of new tickets for Bonnie Raitt and Gallagher. That’s where I got this scar, see? Took 471 stitches on the left side of my face. Uh? Hurt? Oh, no. Only when I laugh. Ha, ha, ha. Ouch!

“Then there was that time the Sillerman Gang tried to hijack us while we were carrying tickets for Kenny Chesney and Atlanta Rhythm Section. It happened down at Clear Channel Gulch. They pulled up right next to us, then one of them jumped over from their car to the truck, grabbed my former partner and threw him down to the pavement under the right rear tire. Good old Larry. He was my third, no, my fourth partner. Whew! What a mess! No, son, you want to put the Kevlar vest on under your uniform. Yeah, like that.

“Or take that time we were running with a load of Voodoo Glow Skulls tickets for the weekend onsales. The Willy Mo Boys must have tossed at least 20 or 30 grenades into the cab. That’s when I got me this artificial appendix. Hear that? Thonk! Thonk! 100 percent pure titanium.

“Yup. Life is always intense when you’re an armored ticket truck driver. Fire bombings, bazookas, flame-throwers, they’ll throw everything at you when you’re carrying a load of valuable tickets for Shania Twain or Neil Young. Just ask my last partner. The Jive Records Gang kidnapped him and forced him to watch that Britney Spears movie, Crossroads, over and over and over. In fact, I just heard from the hospital yesterday. Poor guy’s still huddled in a corner, refusing to speak. But they think they can remove his straightjacket in a couple of weeks and… and…

“Hey, where are you going? Come back! The truck’s almost ready to roll and we’ve got tickets for Soulive and Lake Trout to deliver.

“Damn! Lost another one.”