Friday, October 5, 2012

The things we do for love

My husband J loves MMA (mixed martial arts).  I have attended two live Strikeforce events in Portland with my husband.  Two, but who's counting? I'll admit during these fights I was bored to tears, but my husband did go to both Sex and the City movies with me (in the theater), so I kind of owed him.  During these fighting events we were so close to the cage that J would get up out of his seat and walk around the cage so he could get glimpses of his fighting idols.  I stayed in my seat, alone, and did I mention bored? There aren't many females at these events so I was mostly sandwiched in between a bunch of sweaty, unruly men who reeked like beer. Had they been shirtless firemen I may not have minded so much.  During the last fight we attended, one of these drunk men even kicked over his beer that was under his chair and those of us sitting behind him had a 1-2 inch beer puddle under our feet.  I'm not a beer drinker so I was less than impressed.  Had it been a margarita puddle, I wouldn't have complained.

When J heard that the UFC was coming to Seattle this winter, he lit up like a Christmas tree.  He has been talking non stop about this fight for weeks.  Unfortunately I wont be attending this one (oh darn), because Seattle is too far of a drive from Portland, without needing to hire babysitters and all that hassle.  Plus UFC tickets are much more expensive than other fighting events, as they are very popular and sell out huge arenas.

Last night J casually tells me, "Oh yeah. Tomorrow at 10 am sharp you will have to buy my UFC ticket."  You're probably reading this and thinking, "So, what's the big deal? Buy the man a ticket!"  I used to think the same thing as you, until I married the pickiest man in the entire world.  He is very specific about which rows/sections he will sit in during certain events, and which ones he wont.  I could feel the pressure mounting on me already.  With my hubby, nothing is simple.  Usually I wont even be in the same room as J while he's attempting to buy tickets for important events.  J is also a huge Depeche Mode fan and the last time they came to Seattle, I thought we were going to end up divorced by the end of the ticket buying process.  The computer froze, and then he couldn't remember his Ticketmaster account password, and the entire time he's panicking that the tickets were going to sell out in seconds.  They didn't.  The arena was half empty on the night of the concert.

So before he left for work this morning he logged into his Ticketmaster account and had everything all ready for me to buy his ticket at 10 am.  "Make sure you are ready to hit submit at 10 am SHARP" J reminded me as he walked out the door.   "Okay" I replied as I was in the middle of changing a diaper, answering a Tweet, and juggling knives with my free hand.

At some point while answering an email I got that sick to my stomach feeling.  I forgot to buy his ticket!  I frantically grabbed my cell phone to check the time (our time is not set on our computer thanks to Peanut resetting everything).  It was 10:10.  My hubby would be having a cow if he knew I let 10 precious minutes slip away!  I searched for the "purchase ticket" option and couldn't figure out how to buy a ticket.  The website was frozen and needed to be refreshed.  I hit refresh, selected one ticket, only to get a captcha. Really? Why don't they just say, "Sorry, we're going to make your ticket buying experience as difficult as possible".  After typing in 3 different captchas, I finally got the right one.  I would love to find the creator of captcha and punch them in the face, and then say, "See, i'm not a robot!"

The first seat it gave me was actually in one of the 3 sections that J approved of and it wasn't a horrible seat.  I started to pat myself on the back for not totally screwing up, when all of a sudden a really bad idea popped into my head…"What if I opened a new window and checked to see if an even better seat pops up?" I know you're reading this and screaming, "Don't do it!" but that's exactly what I did.  The next available seat that came up was not in his approved section, and it was also not a very good seat.  It was obvious I needed to buy the original ticket so I clicked back to the other screen and got an error message.  Not good at all.  I had to close down the entire site and go back in. I was starting to think of possible excuses in my head that I could give to my  husband as to why I wasn't able to buy him a ticket as it was getting close to 10:20.  I kept trying to enter in the stinking captcha with every try as quickly as possible.

 Then entered Peanut. Now not only was I trying to enter in an impossible to read captcha, but I had a little foot pressing on my chin, a furry toddler head smacking me against the boob, tiny little hands with sharp fingernails that needed to be trimmed trying to pry my hands off the keyboard, and all kinds of crazy going on around me.  "Peanut DOWN" I scream.  You would think I was speaking to a dog, but nope, just a 2 year old!  I'm scanning the desk for something, ANYTHING to give him to keep him happy and quiet so I can buy this stupid ticket.  Out of the corner of my eye I catch my 4.5 year old grabbing my soda and taking a sip out of it (we don't allow our kids to drink soda) but at this point I don't even care.  Ever notice when mom is busy, kids suddenly start acting like Satan?  You find yourself giving your child things that you don't even realize you're giving them to keep them busy and then you're like, "Wait, did I really just give my 2 year old a purple Sharpie?" Yikes!

After 3-4 more tries, and lots of yelling at my computer, and getting kicked in the face by Peanut multiple times, I finally bought his ticket. It wasn't as good of a seat as the first ticket, but I wasn't about to try again in fear that tickets would be sold out in the sections that he wanted.  After buying the ticket, I went back to Ticketmaster and searched for another ticket, just to reassure myself that I got him the best available seat in the sections he wanted.  A handful of much better seats popped up in the sections he wanted. I'm assuming these tickets were held up by the captcha monster and then released after people gave up or punched a hole through their monitors.  This information will not be getting passed along to the husband.  

22 comments:

  1. If he ever finds out that you were delayed in buying him his ticket, I have a simple solution to get you out of trouble. Just tell him a big hairy spider was crawling across your keyboard.

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  2. Lmao! That is awesome! My husband loves it too...sadly we don't have enough to always go watch it live. My dh is also very particular in his seats so I just let him purchase tickets...otherwise I'll just end up buying the cheapest one lol. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Glad to hear i'm not the only one with a picky hubby!

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  3. Ha! I really hate to admit this and I will only do so on your blog, I kept screwing up the captcha because I didn't realize the numbers were necessary. Yep dip of the year, picture to the left..

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    1. That's hilarious! I'll admit I thought the same thing at first. Great minds think alike!

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  4. OMG! Girl! I got frustrated just by reading! The things we go through for our men!!!

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  5. Hilarious! This sounds like what I go through trying to buy various tickets for the hubby! :) Danica

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    1. It's so frustrating isn't it? Especially when you're trying to deal with an acrobatic 2 year old!

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  6. If you ever find the captcha idiot, let me know!! We will tag team him. And you KNOW it has to be a man to come up with something like that!! GRRRR!!!!

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    1. Woohoo!!!! I have an a@@ kicking friend who will take on the captcha monster with me! YAY!!!!

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  7. You are so nice. Anything like that I won't do. I get so stressed out I am awful on the computer it is a miracle I have a blog.

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  8. oh man ... I think your husband's 'lost at birth' twin is my husband. I HATE planning trips with him. He has to check every available option, buy tickets at just the right moment for the best deal, and lord ... when he starts looking at the deals on hotels and combinations of room possibilities I want to shoot myself. I usually have an excuse for why I must be out of the house.

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  9. Ugh - anything like that I leave up to my husband. Because, no matter how hard you try they end up disappointed. So - I usually say - good luck with that! Therefore I can't get blamed for accidentally scoring front row tickets to Yo Gabba Gabba.

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    1. I would LOVE to score front row tickets to Gabba! That would totally be worth the frustration. UFC? Not so much!!!!

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  10. I have wanted to set Ticketmaster on fire a few times after dealing with the captcha and the ticking clock. Not to mention the worry that there could be another, better ticket out there with your name on it! The pressure...the horror!

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    1. Hahaha! This made me seriously crack up! I'm glad to hear im not the only one!

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  11. Bwahahahaha! I hate. hate. Hate. HATE. HATE! captcha. Hate. It always takes me at least 10-15 tried just to get through...and then when I finally type in the right letter/number combination, I realize that each attempt has removed some piece of pertinent information, so then I have to do it all over again.

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    1. Yeah, captcha seriously sucks! I'm glad i'm not the only one who thinks so!

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