The phantom of the opera was just to cheap to pay for tickets

Our parents brought us up with two contradictory yet equally important values. First is frugality, which is one of my greatest skills (as anyone who has had tea with me knows. I use the word "tea" lightly, because if the teabag has been used 15 times, is it really anything more than murky water?).

Second is the appreciation of art and culture. My mom used to drag us to art galleries and museums, which I didn't fully appreciate when I was a child. Nor did the other patrons, who had to listen to my whining and shrieking. And neither did the staff, who were worried that, in the midst of a hissy fit, I would damage the property. But it could have been worse: my sister once took a swipe at a Picasso because she wanted to go home.

Culture costs money. I don't like to spend money. But I do like culture. Hence, my predicament. But this weekend, my brother came up with an ingenuous solution. We were going to the opera, and usually the $25 youth tickets are way, way up at the top, in the ultra-nose bleed section. But there must have been a computer glitch when we were buying tickets because for Simon Boccanegra, we were sitting in the Grand Ring, the most expensive area to hear an aria.

The next day we went to see La Boheme and we had the usual crap-tastic seats, and my brother suggested that we sneak down in the intermission. As he said "it's just like when we used to do it for baseball games!" So we did, and got these two fantastic Grand Ring seats (regular price $260), and spent the rest of the performance as close to the stage as is possible, without actually performing ourselves. We could practically smell the singers' sweat. It was awesome. We also snuck into the special donors lounge (minimum donation is $2,250). I'm sure we totally blended in. And thus, it is possible to be both cheap and cultural, as long as you don't mind breaking the law a little. Or risk getting kicked outside.