Monday, November 10, 2008

Dis-Concert-ed

Have you ever had one of those days that starts out with excitement and then goes terribly, disconcertingly downhill?

For me, that was Saturday.

The morning went well enough, DH went and made his deposit while I stayed home and stressed over not having a top I liked to wear with my black pants. If only it had been 20 degrees cooler, or if I bought trendy clothes on a regular basis, my options would have been much better. We picked the deposit up in time, and the IUI was as expected. (1 egg ovulated and 1 small egg hanging out on the left. The right ovary was being shy so not sure there was anything there. My expectations aren't high.)

We even had a nice lunch at Olive Garden with me swearing I didn't want to eat too much in anticipation of our dinner at Ruth's Chris (courtesy of a gift card from DH's employer 3-4 jobs back).

Then we went to the concert. Only we didn't. We parked, we got to the Richmond Coliseum and saw multiple lines, blocks long, maybe 4 lines at one entrance and only 2 lines at the other. Lines that were not moving in or outside the building at 30, 15, 0, -15 minutes to the advertised concert start time. With the stress of planning for the morning, and the frustration and disappointment I felt with what appeared to be horrible planning on the part of the event sponsors and location, it was enough to tip me over into those ugly tears. The ones you can't stop even if you want to, like a dam has broken and you have to wait for the water level to stabilize before you can rebuild.

Once DH said screw the cost of the tickets, I no longer felt like we HAD to wait in lines that looked long enough to miss the concert entirely (it would have helped to have some of those signs you find at an amusement park "Your wait is 45 minutes from this point") to justify either the cost of the tickets, or my guilt for not feeling thrilled about what really was a very thoughtful and well-meant present. So we left. Twenty minutes after the official start time, with hundreds of people still in line. And yes, I was a little disappointed about missing the concert, but my desire to see the concert wasn't enough to dispel my relief at leaving.

Instead of steak and sides, we had grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup (the soup was for DH only, I still suffer from a gag reflex caused years back by being force fed chicken noodle soup during a stomach flu) for dinner. Not what we had planned for the evening meal, but satisfactory enough in it's own way.


I haven't been to a concert since college (I don't count seeing bands in bars...even if they have a top-10 song at the time), so maybe this is how it goes with large venues and security concerns. Please let me know if blocks-long lines lasting well after the official start time are standard now or if this really was as sucky as I felt it was.

3 comments:

  1. I've never heard of a line staying full after a concert started, but it's not unusual for concert security to wait to let in the unwashed masses until fifteen minutes before the show, leaving everyone standing and waiting for hours if need be. It does sound like this situation was sucky. Good luck on your IUI!

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  2. @Erika: Thanks for the perspective. Perhaps that is what happened (unwashed masses, hah!). Still pretty inexcusable in my opinion.

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  3. Sucky.

    BTW - I lurve your header. "Not you." Yeah... suuuuurrrrreeee! Ha!

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