I'm Goin' To Opening Day!

So, I was in Utah this weekend to attend to some family matters. This would have been okay except for the fact that Mets tickets went on sale yesterday, and my in-laws only have diap-up internet access at home so my efforts to snag Opening Day tickets online would have been crippled! Luckily my wife's mom, hereafter known simply as 'mom,' is a saint and agreed to get up at 6:30 Utah time to take me to her office where broadband access was available.

So from 6:55 AM to 9:30 AM I hit redial again and again on the two cell phones I was armed with and waited not-so-patiently in the Mets online ticket waiting room, as teh counter went from 60 down to zero, supposedly attempted to connect to the ticket window, and reset back to sixty. This went on for two and a half hours.

Finally, at 9:30 AM (11:30 NY time) I gave mom some mercy. I gave up on the online endeavor, especially after hearing that my buddy Tubby was able to get past the waiting room, only to be shunned from buying tickets.

All the way home from the office I continued to redial the number (TANGENT ALERT). Why do I still say 'redial' even though I am not "dialing" anything? Is this a word that will make me sound old in front of kids who have no concept of how phones used to work before touch tones? Okay, not I am sounding old to myself. Let's get back to the subject at hand...

We got back to the house at about 9:50, and I kept on hitting redial, my wife took her phone and kept hitting redial, and then my sister-in-law, hereafter known simply as "hero" picked up her cell phone and started trying. Lo and behold, eight minutes later, she got through! I heard the words I'd been dying to hear all morning:

"Thank you for calling the New York Mets ticket office, where Mastercard is preferred."

Opening Day tickets were, of course, sold out. But not really sold out. I could still buy tickets to Opening Day, if I bought a six pack of games. I agreed. And now, $690 dollars on my AmEx later, I own six seats for The Pedro Pack, which includes Opening Day, The Friday Night Mets/Yankees game, and 4 other games which I haven't even bothered to check the dates for. Six seats for each game.

My friends and I are all set for Opening Day now. Hopefully Pedro Martinez will be as well. As for attending the other six games? That is going to be a challenge, seeing as I still live in North Carolina...

Anyway, Lets Go Mets!