You spent $1,000 on a pair of after-market tickets on the field at the Cotton Bowl to see the Rolling Stones tonight. The current weather forecast: not great! It’ll be about 55 degrees, with the chance of rain running at about 60 percent. You very well could be cold and wet tonight. Should you still go to the show? Here are three questions to help you decide:
1. Did you see the Stones at AT&T Stadium in 2015?
YES: That was indoors, and the sound sucks at the Death Star. Totally different experience at the Cotton Bowl. Buck up, and go to the show.
NO: 2015 was your last chance to see the band. Unquestionably, they would all die. And yet you opted not to see the Stones?! You got lucky! Even though Charlie Watts is, indeed, dead, the band is still touring. Surely this is your last shot. Grab a poncho, and go to the show.
2. Are you made of a water-soluble substance, such as sodium chloride?
YES: This is a tough one! The polarity of the rain — if it rains — is going to dissociate your sodium and chloride ions, and you’re going to wind up as a solution that will soak into the field of the Cotton Bowl. Not the best outcome. But look at it this way: you’ll have a great early spot for the 2022 Red River Slaughter or whatever they won’t call that OU-TX game. Take the risk, and go to the show.
NO: Then what are you worried about, cupcake?! Do it Chicago style, like our friend Mark Platt does: to keep your feet dry, wear socks that are actually plastic Tom Thumb grocery bags, and go to the show.
3. Did you think you were actually buying tickets to see a reunited version of the Beatles featuring Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr—and probably Dave Grohl, because Dave Grohl is always involved in these things, right?—because you’ve always somehow mixed up those two massively iconic groups, and really you only bought what you thought were reunited Beatles tickets because your estranged wife is a huge fan, but as it turns out she is not a huge fan of the Beatles or the Stones but really The Who?
YES: That’s bizarre, but we sort of get it. The part about mixing up the Stones and the Beatles—if you aren’t a fan, at some point maybe it all gets blended together as “British Invasion” and so even maybe a Kinks song to you might end up being classified as a Stones song. You should probably know your wife better, though. Pretty obvious why you two are estranged, and we hope you take this as a signal to do better. Anyway, go to the show.
NO: Then you should be just fine. The show. Go.
