Comedy of near misses

Update on the tickets...

Ig finally gave me a call but hadn't checked his e-mail until after lunch. (He probably didn't wake up until lunch.) I had to summarize all the events of the morning to him. He sensed how flustered I was about the whole situation, apologized for not being more on top of things, and then called Green to make sure everything was still on track.

Green indicated everything was fine. He said the FedEx form promised a 10:30am delivery. When Ig doubled checked, he learned that it's before 10:30 on *weekdays* and before NOON on Saturdays. Uh, okay that's not helpful. Green had misunderstood the guarantee.

The two of them talked again and put together a solution. Green agreed that once the package was picked up by FedEx (it was sitting in a drop box somewhere in L.A.), Green would call and request that the package be held at the local FedEx station. That way, we could pick it up earlier and make it in time for the noon start of the event. Everyone was prepared to get up and potentially leave my place no later 10am.

The next morning, I slept in and woke up at 8:30am. Out of curiosity, I turned on my computer and tracked the package. It showed that it had arrived at 7:44am at the airport (some 35 miles away) and was in-transit to the FedEx office. ARGH.

Ig spoke with the location office manager who verified that the package would be held and not delivered once it arrived. She estimated it would arrive before 10am. When we hung up on each other around 9:30am, Ig said he'd get ready and meet me at my place. I called Tim and he said he'd be out the door in a few minutes. I figured the guys would arrive by 9:45am and we could be at FedEx by 10am.

Tim showed up on time, but we waited some time for Ig. I got rather frustrated. Five minutes after 10am, I commented that "I know he tends to be late to thing, but you'd think this one time he'd understand trying to be prompt."

Ig showed up a few minutes later. I immediately started up the car and pulled out of the lot. As I finished backing out, I noticed in my rear view mirror a FedEx truck pulling into the neighborhood.

Feeling rather paranoid at this point, I hesitated and suggested that we double check that the driver didn't have our tickets. I mean, what are the chances that the FedEx guy was here to deliver to someone else on a Saturday.

With engine running, I thought about how long it would take us to get there while Tim watched Ig talk to the driver. I wasn't even watching because I didn't think anything would happen. Then Tim started laughing as Ig ran towards the car. He had an envelope in his hands!! We all just shook our heads in disbelief that FedEx had messed up and attempted to deliver the package. If Ig hadn't been late, we would have had to drive back to my place for the tickets. All we could do at this point was laugh.

After a stop for gas, we drove to a BART station. Knowing how late we were, it seemed like a smarter idea to ride the BART rather than try and park the car near the event. We bought our tickets and stood on the platform. The schedule said we had about five minutes before the next train. Perfect timing.

Ig was curious to see what time we would arrive and started to go back downstairs to locate a schedule. As he walked away, I was worried he'd miss the train and wanted my ticket in hand. Tim walked over to the stairs and yelled down to Ig to give us our tickets.

Tim's been particularly joking with me lately. He always tries to trick me by saying I didn't give him something or that he doesn't know what I'm talking about. It's gotten to the point where I'm not sure whether to believe him. It's kind of annoying sometimes. I looked up to see Tim walking towards me with his arm out stretch asking, "give me the car keys. Ig forgot the tickets."

I didn't believe him. My response was, "yeah, right."

"No, really, he doesn't have them."

"Oh crap! You're kidding?"

I fumbled through my bag for the keys. Tim went over to the stairs and threw them down to Ig. I yelled, "hurry," noticing that the sign was now blinking to alert us the train was incoming. After all we'd been through, I couldn't believe that he forgot the tickets. At least this didn't happen after we'd already arrived at the stadium.

I looked at Tim and indicated that Ig was not going to return in time. When the train opened it's doors, I wondered whether we should get on board. Tim was no help. He shrugged his shoulders. We debated whether one person should go ahead and buy some lunch food. I stepped into the car and asked one last time if I should go without them.

They met up with me just before noon. I had managed to buy some hot dogs and burritos before they arrived. In that sense, I guess it worked out. Still, I was pissed we were late. I also felt bad that we had this guy waiting for us at the stadium to get his $30 ticket. Considering how late we were, he would have been better off paying one of the scalpers on the street $10 or less for a ticket (which is what ticket were worth by that time).

So if you do the math, it came out to $26.66 for each of us, plus the gas and transportation. If we had not taken the tickets, Green would have gotten $90 for selling three tickets but spent $40 on FedEx. With our involvement, he got $90 for selling four tickets AND we paid him back for the $20 he spent on FedEx. That puts him $60 ahead of where he would have been (okay, he still took a loss on the tickets overall).

Sure, we had a good time, but I still think Green got a really good deal out of this. This is the last time I take a friend of a friend up on a "free" ticket offer.