49er Mojo– Whipped on even those who buy their tickets
This is a story I’m calling "The Tragedy of the Forty-Niner Tickets." Or, maybe it’s a tragi-comedy. You be the judge. It does get pretty funny when it starts to really spiral out of control.
A couple of weeks ago we were like, "Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to go see a 49er game?" I mean, not like the 49ers are doing anything good this year or anything, but like, hey– we used to live in San Francisco, we never went when we were there, we’re both into football this year, so why not? It could be fun. We then called up Stephan’s cousin to see if he wanted to go. We were all in. We made booked a hotel, made plane reservations, got tickets to the game. The tickets showed up in the Fedex. We made reservations for the dog to go to his daycare (see how complicated these plans are? By now, you’re just wondering how it can go wrong, right? Right?)
Right. Thursday afternoon (we’re supposed to leave on Friday night), our friend from SF, the one who we were going to get to take the fourth ticket, goes home from work– sore throat and flu.
OK, we think. Maybe Steph’s cousin will have to sit next to a stranger. No problem. No problem. It’s ok. Nothing’s going wrong. But there’s nothing we can do about it. Too many plans have been made. The stakes are too high. The first domino has fallen. This is like that moment in Oedipus the King where the blind seer comes on, and he’s like "Hey, there’s something weird about this place," but all of the townspeople ignore him
because he’s just a crazy old guy. Yeah, it’s just like that moment.
Friday morning Steph wakes up with the sore throat. Now, as I’ve already mentioned, the Voice of God can’t get a cold, or else he can’t go to work. So….what do we do? We postpone the flight until Saturday, prraaaying that the sore throat goes away, because there’s no way he’s flying on a plane, then sitting in a freezing cold stadium, probably only to watch the 49ers lose, especially if he’s actually sick. I change all the reservations, blah blah blah.
Then, at 6:00pm, which is right about the time we would have been leaving if we were leaving on Friday, I realize I have the sore throat.
More scrambling ensues. We decide to Zicam the hell out of ourselves, then see how we feel in the morning. Then Steph’s cousin emails to say HE has the sore throat.
We don’t feel better in the morning. Reservations are canceled. Since they are the only ones now who have escaped the freaky sore throat, Steph’s parents are called. Do they want to go to the game? Yes, they do! We Fedex the tickets. The parents get to the hotel Saturday night. OK, this is ok– this is still salvageable.
But, wait! Sunday morning we get a call. Where are the tickets. There are no tickets. WHAT? We have a tracking number, we say. Is this a joke? We get the name of the ACTUAL person at the hotel who signed for the tickets, but that guy works two jobs and is not picking up his phone. Perhaps he cannot hear the phone over the din of the 49er game that he is now attending, having obviously stolen our tickets, I say, not quite kidding. The hotel is offended. I am offended that they are offended. I start to yell. They start to yell. I yell louder, then send some nasty faxes. I adopt the tone of the aforementioned Greek tragedy, and begin to screech like a harpie into the phone. Steph mentions that maybe I should have my own reality tv show, where I go around firing people who don’t even work for me. I actually consider pitching this show.
The tickets are lost. The hotel is reeaaallly sorry for losing them. And by really sorry, I mean, they gave us enough stuff that we will definitely stay there again, and I am actually not going to mention their name here. The sore throats are gone (except for the SF friend, who is still horizontal). I got alot of work done on my NaNoWriMo novel over the weekend. The in-laws had a nice afternoon in San Francisco despite not going to the game, which as it turns out, the Niners lost.
THE END