At Tournament, the Only Choice Is to Go for Broke

I have a daily ATM limit of $300, so I knew I’d be cutting it close trying to get through an entire day at Staples Center.

I could not afford surprises like finding the $13 Staples Center parking lot I usually use for Laker, Clipper and King games costing $20 Thursday for the Pac-10 tournament. When I asked why the price had been changed, a Staples spokesman said, because they can.

“You can write that off to the company,” an official said, and while that’s true, that cuts into our profits and all my retirement money is tied up in Tribune Co. stock, and I’d imagine there are a lot of you out there hoping nothing stops me from retiring.

I also have a wedding to pay for, or counseling for my daughter if successful in driving away the grocery store bagger, so these days I’m used to eating at McDonald’s, knowing you can get a double quarter-pounder cheese value meal for less than five bucks in Yorba Linda.

Unfortunately, when I ordered the same value meal at the McDonald’s in Staples Center, the clerk rang up a house payment.

I thought about asking for some napkins too, but there’s no telling how much the folks at Staples charge for them.

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WHEN I called the corporate McDonald’s headquarters to determine if I had found the highest priced double quarter-pounder cheese value meal in the state of California, customer service representative Lupie Picarello said she thought Magic Mountain’s prices might top Staples.

I told her Staples was charging $9 for a double quarter-pounder cheese value meal, and she said, “Ouch,” while admitting she’d have to do some checking now because I just might have found the most expensive McDonald’s double quarter-pounder cheese value meal anywhere.

While I waited for a return call, I ran into Carole and Allan Forrest, two die-hard UCLA fans, who had decided to make an entire day of it in Staples.

Allan, a dentist who counts John Wooden among his victims, added up what he expected to spend here, including a pair of $135 tickets for the three-day event, parking, food and T-shirt, and the final tab was a shock to him--almost $1,000.

When he told me “That’s a crown and three or four fillings,” I said that probably makes him an expert in rip-offs, and he laughed, but I got the feeling I better not catch him the next time with a drill in his hand.

He asked if he could take a picture of his wife and me, and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it if a picture of a beautiful blond and me pops up anytime soon on the Internet. As for the leggy brunet, I’m working on that story.

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TALK ABOUT rip-offs. Someone tried to sell me The Times walking into the building for $1 because it included a placard that said, “Go Huskies” or “Go Ducks” or “Go Cardinals.” Had it read correctly: “Go Cardinal,” I might have bought it since Stanford was playing USC, but I already get enough criticism for the number of grammatical mistakes I make without holding up a sign with the nickname for a team that doesn’t exist. It appears we’re in need of a placard editor.

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ONCE INSIDE the arena, Washington was playing Oregon, as if I could really care, but then I figured somebody should look interested.

The University of Oregon band took up position at one end of the court. The kids removed the folding chairs and made it clear they intended to stand for the entire game, which included tuba player Robert Mcfadden, who was parked directly in front of paying customers Arnold Gold and Phil Mann.

Gold offered me a chance to sit in his seat so I could see for myself that when someone shot the ball, from his vantage point he couldn’t tell if the ball was going into the basket or the tuba.

“We turned out to be lucky,” Gold told me after Oregon’s win over Washington. “At the other end of the court the Washington band had three tubas.”

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WHEN IT came time for Stanford to play USC, I was very disappointed no one from USC asked me to leave, because I was hungry again, and of course no one goes hungry at Staples--they just go poor.

Staples officials, however, aren’t very cooperative when you talk like that or ask a question that might be critical of their cash cow. When I asked why they had jacked up parking prices, they told me the Democratic National Convention brought $137 million into the L.A. economy. I didn’t realize it was the Democrats who raised the parking prices for the Pac-10 tournament, but it figures.

The Staples folks also told me they have done the arithmetic and the average person who comes to an event here spends $7 on food. That sounds like Arthur Andersen-Enron-like math, because a bag of peanuts costs $5, and I defy anyone to eat a bag of peanuts here without buying a soda ($3.50), water ($3.25) or a beer ($6).

The Pac-10 provided free food to the media, but after what I’d written about the Rip-Off 10 in Thursday’s paper, I figured I best follow Dwyre in line and make him my food tester. We can always get another sports editor.

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A CUP of coffee at McDonald’s here costs $2. If they sold Starbucks on the premises, I imagine a Mocha Frappuccino would go for something like $742.

I paid the two bucks because I had to stay awake for the UCLA game after the first three games of the day-night had the favored team winning by an average of more than 21 points.

I might even have to eat again to get through the whole game, but the good news is the last game of the day looks like it might end after midnight, which means I can hit the ATM again.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.