Could you, er, maybe, help me? --- Day 301

Walk: Union Square, Mindful Body
Distance: 1 mile and take restorative yoga class

Just got a ticket to a 'Sold Out" 'Grateful Dead' concert. It has ever been Grateful Dead way to announce concerts suddenly, thus initiating a mad scramble for tickets.  This continues even as the Dead has morphed into different names after Jerry Garcia died.  So, the night before my Jeopardy flight an email appeared in my Inbox announcing a concert I dearly want to attend.  Problem: The (always instantly sold out) online box office would open while I was on the plane, and by the time it landed for sure the tickets would be gone.

Solution: I have one friend who is a Longtime GD person and I realized my only hope of possibly getting into the initial (Monday morning) auction would be to ask him to include me if he or someone he knew would be buying/trying to buy tickets.

The key words in all that are "ask him."  For some reason it is nearly impossible for me to ask people for things.  I'm sure the psychological complexities surrounding this are vast and boring for the ciwt reader.  As Freud would say, the mindset is "over-determined." 

But, finally I did it; I sent an email asking.  He responded he might be tied up in meetings but, sure, if he could.  Instead of thinking, "Whew, that's taken care of," I proceeded to feel like 'omg, now look how I've  burdened him, etc.'  In fact he did get tied up in meetings and couldn't get on line in time.  Then I felt Even Worse: Poor Guy had meetings and I had the presumption to ask this busy person for his time. This discomfort lingered (of course) as I made special unsuccessful trips over to the physical box office (where there was consistently a virtual party of ticket buyers) and did the few other things I could do to 'take matters into my own hands/Be responsible for myself.' 

Then this morning I got a text from my friend saying he'd noticed some tickets were available online, and maybe I should check the site.  I did, and the tickets were Sold Out. But he had seen availabilities. So, I began to realize that, due to online (and general) overwhelm, maybe they were getting to sales as their nerves and computer allowed and it would be worth continuing to check from time to time.  Seemed futile, but, what the heck.  And, guess what, on a quick pre-yoga class check this afternoon, there was suddenly a Quantity? sign on the Tickets page.

So, it was OK to ask.  Life did go on.  The (ever dreaded) consequences were actually Positive.  My friend texted a 'Yay!'; I texted a 'Thank You!'; and the concert people e-mailed a will call confirmation.  A pretty ordinary occurance but a Big deal to me.

That Thank You! goes to the precious few of you I've actually asked for things over time. You know who you are. I'm so appreciative that you're in my life - period and because I trust you enough to ask for things. Aww...