Getting the Tickets to the Rally

Last week... (hold on while I check, yes, still last week)... last week I got an invitation to sign up for tickets to Barack Obama's Election Night rally down in Grant Park. I've never been to an election night rally, but then, the candidates I normally support never make it past the primaries. I decided that I would go ahead and sign up, and I got a message confirming I would get tickets. I was admittedly excited, moreso when I heard about how many people signed up and were on the waiting list. Wow.

Monday, 3 November rolled around. I had received an email stating that my ticket would be emailed on the 3rd, between 5pm and 6pm. I hoped they meant Eastern Time, but no such luck. So I went home, and there was the email, but right now my home printer wasn't working. I forwarded the email to my work address, and to my gmail account too. I figured I could print from work.

Wow. The Democratic Party was serious in not copying the ticket. Somehow it never got through to my work email, and the image was stripped from my gmail account. Also, as I use Thunderbird and not web mail, I could not access the original email except through my home computer. It seemed like any attempt to forward the email would not work. So I emailed the sender to let them know about my problem.

I got an email back saying I could pick up tickets downtown at the Hyatt, which is, alas, a 2-hour round trip from where I work using public transportation. As I could only pick them up between 10am and 3pm, and no one else could get them for me, and I only have an hour for lunch, this would not work. I was rather upset, as I really wanted to go to the rally.

Then I thought about maybe saving the email as a file, and printing it at the UPS store, as there is no Kinko's near me. No luck, they do not have the program to open emails. Now I was even more upset.

I called my friend Becka, who I was going to take to the rally, and she suggested I bring the file to her at work, and print it there. Then I thought, maybe I can email the file and that will work...

I rushed home as much as you can on the CTA, and sent her the file, and waited, chanting, "Please work, please work, please work..." It worked. The file printed, there was a ticket; we were good to go. So I told Becka I would meet her outside the Harold Washington Library, and we were on our way!