Last night was a great evening... with only some minor hiccups, which proved to be great material for the life lesson: keep calm and carry on.
A couple months ago I purchased tickets to the musical Wicked. I found out about it in May 2007 and had it marked on my calendar that it would open on May 7, 2008. I had been preparing myself by listening to the soundtrack endlessly and once May 7th rolled around this year, I knew every word (but still didn't know the majority of the plot!).
My parents & Jon settled on May 24th as the best day for us to go, the last night of the tour in KC. So my parents & Jon drove up on Friday and we spent time together Friday night with Strawberry Shortcake and shopped all day Saturday (can you believe it!). It was a turning out to be perfect. In the afternoon on Saturday we split our ways to get ready for dinner & Wicked, eventually meeting up at Ted's Montana Grill in the KC P&L district. Jon got the Bison Ribeye and my dad got the Bison Short Ribs.... there food came out, while we were still waiting for the Salmon Plank that my mom and I intended to share. Two or three times waiters came over and said how sorry they were about the salmon and that it should be out shortly. Really, it didn't bother us, we were still carrying on our conversation. When our salmon came out, maybe 7-10 minutes after the bison, who I can only assume was the manager said that it was on the house for being late. Score!
It was the best salmon that my mom or I ever had and even better that it was free!
We were feeling great it was 7:20 pm, the show started at 8:00 pm and was only 3 blocks from the restaurant. We decided we would hold off on dessert in leu of getting to the show at a decent time.
Once we got there they scanned our tickets, no problem and we were off to find our seats... while the boys were in the restroom my mom and I were looking for our seats. After walking around the LCBalc section 3 times we finally realized that there were people in our seats. We went down to the ushers at the same time that the men were heading up to find the seats as well. The usher determined that we had the EXACT SAME TICKETS! Craziness! What do we do now?
The usher supervisor had 1 person from our party and one person from the other peoples party go down to speak to the general manager or something. My dad being the head of the household volunteered, but I said because I paid for them I should go, but then sternly said to my father, "You're going with me." (when you have a 6'5", 300 lb. person on your hands you have to use them to you're advantage!)
My dad, being the extrovert he is, immediately made friends with the other couple that had the same tickets we did. It turns out that they were from Iowa as well, in town visiting for the weekend and the tickets were a birthday present for their niece.... hmmm... sounds similar...
Anyway, the general manager had asked for our tickets and when he came back he told us that one of us wasn't going to like him. We had both bought our tickets from Tickets Now. He said that our tickets were fraudulent and the broker had double-booked the tickets, counting on us not being able to get in to the theater. Then he proceeded to tell us that because he could not determine who's tickets were the fake, then whoever got their first would get the seats. This is when I about lost it. Tears were about to roll down my face and I was ready to punch someone, and I'm pretty sure I said something like, "So, we're just screwed then?" (not very professional)
My dad immediately took over, saying that the show was starting and the other couple needed to get upstairs before it started. Wow, how good is he, I wasn't even thinking of them... it was in that moment that I really, truly appreciated my dad being such a good example for me. The other couple then asked if there would be standing room for us. Long story shorter, we ended up not making the doors closing, had to stand for the first song with the supervisor whispering in our ears every other second and everyone telling us to shush before we were able to get seats on the end of the aisle.
I was really upset and still ready to cry for the next song, but finally was able to get over it and enjoyed the rest of the show. The show was phenomenal, everything and so much more than I had anticipated. There were so many twists and turns in the plot that it was very exciting. My favorite song was Defying Gravity and the special effects on Elphaba.
So lessons learned: Don't buy tickets from Tickets Now and Keep Calm and Carry On.
