Okay, here goes. Last year, we planned to make the fall night race at Richmond. The Mrs brother and his wife were to accompany us and we had already booked a room in Colonial Heights, south of Richmond. We had to wait until a certain date to order tickets over the phone, and 11:00 was the time the tickets would go on sale. I happened to be off that day, so I was the one who would be making the call. We don't have a long distance carrier for a couple of reasons, so we use a calling card. The first time I tried calling the track, I got a busy signal and decided right then and there that I wasn't going to sit there and punch in all those numbers every time I got a busy signal, so I decided to get my cell phone. I've got plenty of time on that phone and long distance is included. After about 30 minutes of getting a busy signal, I noticed that my battery was getting low so I decided to use the charger while calling. I didn't want to get cut off. Okay, after a full hour of constant redialing, I finally got through. 12:00 and all was well. Right? Wrong. After talking to three different people, I was put on hold and told I would get the next available ticket agent. I figured this would take about 10 minutes or so, but was I wrong. Another hour had rolled around before I got an agent. Okay, I'm ready to order. I told the lady I wanted four of the best tickets available. She told me there wasn't very many good tickets left. She had some in the middle of turns 3 and 4, but you would have a hard time seeing over the banking. I asked if there were'nt anything else. She told me she had a few left in the no drinking section and checked to see if there were four together. Yes! She had four that were pretty decent seats. I said good, I'll take them. She then got my name and asked for my credit card number. Naturally, I had it right in front of me. Just as I was about to give her the numbers, the phone disconnected because the charger had come loose!
I couldn't believe what had just happened. Over two hours with that phone to my ear and so close. I knew that I couldn't get back in time to get those tickets or any other ones for that matter. I was mad as hell and kicking just about everything. As things turned out, we were able to get tickets through a friend and everything turned out just fine. I'll never forget that day on the phone. Next time I'll drive up to the track to get tickets. It's only about four hours away.
