The Madness Continues

I am driving home from work on Friday afternoon, and what do I hear on the radio? There are a limited amount of tickets left for the Saturday NCAA Tournament game between UNC and Michigan State. The game is at our very own LJVM Coliseum. The tickets go on sale at 10:00 AM and you can only get them at the coliseum. Let's see, Summers has to work, Mom and Dad are in Texas, Steve and Tracy are away for the evening for Steve's birthday, and Alana and Vicki have Brady's soccer game early in the morning. I must have tickets. What else can I do but devise a plan. Well, it is supposed to be 30 degrees and very windy at daybreak. I start packing a bag and thinking, what kind of mother am I? Who would take their 2 year old child out into that kind of cold for hours and maybe not even get a ticket? I decided that I would go and if it looked impossible, I would leave. I put coloring books and a DVD player with Bambi into the bag. Oh yeah, did I mention there is no access to a bathroom? I put Zander into a pull up which he was not happy about. He was still dry when we got home.

The clock wakes me up at 6:30. I get up, throw on as many clothes as I could and start to dress Zander. I put on 3 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, a sweat shirt and a huge winter coat. He also had on a tobaggan, 2 hoods and 2 pairs of gloves. He tried to shoot his Go Tarheels ball on the way out of the door and fell over. He had on so many clothes that Daddy had to carry him to the car. Now, I realize that I forgot to warm the car - Oh, well, what is the point? I arrive at McDonalds to get Zander some breakfast and they said that the credit card system is down. It then takes them 15 minutes to get me change for my breakfast. I am about to freak out as I can only imagine that everyone has already gotten in line for the tickets. When we finally arrive, I see right many people in line. I put Zander in the stroller, grab his bag, breakfast and my chair. When we get to the end of the line, the man in front of me tells me that I am 45 th in line and they have been told that there are approximately 200 tickets for sale. Each person can buy 4 tickets. I was never any good at math, but I realized that it was going to be very close. We proceeded to eat breakfast, watch Bambi and talk to everyone in line. We also had to watch very closely to make sure that no one broke in line. It would only take 1 or 2 extra people for me not to get tickets. A couple of people did try, but the crowd quickly turned on them and the police asked them to leave. Did I mention that by this point, the adults are popsicles. The wind was blowing so hard, I don't have any idea what the wind chill factor might have been. Zander on the other hand, never complained once. He sat on my lap and we kept each other warm. All you could see was his eyes and nose sticking out of his hood. At 10:00 the tickets went on sale. Everyone quickly packed up their items and anxiously waited to see if they were going to be the lucky ones to leave with tickets. It didn't make it any easier to have the coliseum manager greet you and shake your hand and tell you good luck. It was our turn. The lady said that she had 4 tickets left and they were all together. I could not have been more relieved! We got our tickets and walked quickly to the car. Two people behind me got tickets and then everyone started booing and approximately 300 very sad people headed for their cars. We were still frozen but very excited. Now we call Steve and let him know that he and Zachary also have a ticket. We headed home to warm up. Zander took a 3 hour nap. Go HEELS!! What an adventure!