Last night on a whim I decided to take my son to the game (Free Parking Tuesdays!), and it was one helluva battle with a lot of action, we saw it with a great group of friends from work, and even though we had to leave early (bedtime), we had a great time.
Until I got home.
Now, I have to set this up for you. I'm writing this story for my own sake as much as yours. I made a mistake I wouldn't wish on anyone, so consider this as part cautionary tale, part personal closure - which has eluded me since this discovery, despite my desperation to put it behind me.
Rewind to earlier in the day at the office; I discovered a friend attempting to buy a bleacher ticket online. "Ah, don't do that," I say, with the confidence of a seasoned walk-up fan. "On a Tuesday night, you can get bleacher tickets from the electronic kiosks at the park - save yourself those fees, man." He ended up doing precisely that.
But I'm already getting ahead of myself.
When I told my son Tony that we were going to the game, of course he is super-excited. I couldn't pack our stuff fast enough, we couldn't get out the door quick enough. When we finally were on the road about an hour before gametime, I suddenly got a phone call.
I had a studio job booked that one of our recent graduates was going to work. Hit time was 7pm, right around the same time when we should have been taking off our caps for the National Anthem. That phone call I got was my student employee, telling me he was locked out of the building.
At this point, I've pulled all the way to the right lane and am looking to exit. The two exits I want are both backed up onto the freeway, I need to pull over and make some calls pronto.
The third exit is clear, so I pull off the road and dial up our IT person who oversees the electronic locks on the building. He informs me that the campus PD has control of the outer door locks, and that the graduates from last month have been erased. The good news is that our people control the inside electronic locks, so my student worker will be able to get in to the studio - if he can get into the building.
I start frantically calling other co-workers to no avail, contemplating whether or not I could turn 180, fly home to get my card key, and fly to work in approximately 30 minutes. I'm pretty sure Tony is asking me some questions, but he senses the severity of my situation and quietly hugs his monky pillow while strapped into his seat, no doubt listening to me freak out a bit.
Next is to call back my student, let him know that if he can get in, the studio will be accessible. While conversing with him, he catches a teacher walking through the halls who lets him in. I confirm that he can get into the studio, and crisis is averted! Fire up engine, get back on freeway, only lost about 15-20 minutes of tailgate time.
Finally find our party, get parked, and crack a beer. Tell co-worker party my tale of woe (short version), just happy to be there. The time is 6:50pm.
After single beer, we go to get our tickets, as party has left ahead of us to catch first pitch. I contemplate pounding second beer, except Mommy isn't here, so I can't afford to get too drunk. As we approach the south gate, I see giant lines in front of the metal detectors. WTF, I think. I hustle to the kiosk with Tony in tow, and re-familiarize myself with the odd process of swiping my card last on this machine. Trying to go through it as quickly as possible, I didn't change the Quantity on the Number of Tickets page, so I hit the back button, change Quantity to 2, then NEXT.
Welp, that ticket page defaults to Diamond Level seats. I intended to buy bleacher seats. You can see where this is going.
Right at the "Review" page, the guy next to me tells me something about "The third ticket is your receipt". Now, I'm only one beer deep, and I should have caught the fact that I was about to spend 3.5x the money I had intended; but instead I listen to this guy next to me who essentially distracted me at the moment I should have realized that I was buying the wrong tickets.
Now here is the real kicker - I did not realize I had bought the wrong tickets until after Tony and I had returned home.
We went straight to where our party was in LF bleachers, had a great time with friends, saw the "New Big Three" of Jaso, Norris, and Vogt put on a power display, and by the time we left the A's were up 8-3, on the back of Derek Norris' first of two huge pinch hits, this one a 3-run home run. I maintained my sobriety nursing a second, single beer for about four innings. I bought Tony one of these fancy Rickey Henderson figures (McFarlane Toys) for like $30 - in part because they didn't have a kids' sized Coco shirt, which is what he had originally asked me for - and I figured that would also have cost me about $30.
So, upon returning home and after he finally went to sleep, and I'm emptying my pockets to change my clothes, I throw the tickets on a table and notice the the total on the receipt - $108 for two tickets. I did a double-take. I checked the date, thinking maybe this receipt had been hiding in these pants' pockets from a previous game. Nope - June 17, 2014. I look at the tickets. Sec 114, Row 15, Seats 5 and 6. We spent the whole game (happily) in the bleachers. Had I known I had accidentally bought these tickets I could have gone to Ticket Services before entering the park. Had I discovered it after I entered, I could have given them to my friends in pairs, we could have taken turns sitting in incredible seats on the first deck.
But instead, I discovered it at home, around the 9th inning, after Derek Norris 2nd hit of the game, a 2-run double, making it a 10-5 game at one point. What was a great night at the park turned into a lot of holding my face in my palm at home, trying to retrace my steps, figure out how I could have made such a colossol error and not have discovered it until it was entirely too late.
I couldn't sleep. (I took a shot of tequila.)
I've been trying to shake it ever since, but I am still grinding my teeth and staring into the hole in my wallet, asking the universe what could I have done that would warrant such a slight of karmic injustice.
Did I mention it's my birthday this week?
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