What should have been a good time

My favorite favorite favorite band is Matchbox Twenty. When they announced that they were touring at the end of last year, I immediately hopped online to see if they were coming to Phoenix. Sure enough, Phoenix was listed on the tour dates, but there was NO DATE!!! Every other city had a date, just not Phoenix.

Well, for literally MONTHS my husband and I stalked the site and when that date popped up, we immediately bought tickets. So what if the show was on a Monday night? For Rob and the boys, I could stay up a little late on a work night!

Well, then I found out I was pregnant. Then I felt tired all the time. My days consisted of 2-3 hour naps when I got home, and then going to bed at the normal time. I didn't know if I was going to make it, but how could I miss the show?

Then there was that pesky smoking issue. People like to smoke (haha) at concerts. Well, I checked, and the venue was non smoking. Arizona also passed some pretty strict laws in the past year about smoking in public places, and when we got there they had it on the slide shows and posted around, so I thought I'd be okay since we didn't have lawn seats.

Until the guy two seats down showed up and started CHAIN SMOKING!!!

So, I watched the opener, then Alanis Morrisette came on, and halfway through her show I was bawling, because I realized that I was sitting there trying not to breathe! All I could think about was how bad I had wanted to see this show, and how long I waited, and how much money we spent on the tickets, and I couldn't even enjoy it because I was freaking out about how I could possibly be hurting my baby and was it even worth it? It was terrible.

During the intermission between the openers and MB20 we went to the concession stand. I had noticed earlier that they had funnel cakes, and I wanted one. Nope. Sold out. Losers.

So the main show starts, and it was AWESOME. I loved every minute of it and actually cheered up a bit, considering. I was glad that I didn't try to leave. After the show, as we were leaving, I commented to my husband that I was tempted to get a wristband.

They did tthis thing where for the price of a tshirt (I'm so not into concert tshirts!) you could buy a wristband that opened up into a usb thing, and it held a recording of the entire show. How cool is that? So my husband says to me, I was thinking about it too! We decide to go ahead and get one, and head over to the merchandise booth.

Now, this venue has the main concert area in the center, with a pavillion on either side full of food and vendors. There is also a parking lot and entrance on each of the east and west sides. The back area is the lawn seating, where all the potheads usually hang out. We were parked in the far southeast corner of the east lot, which was pretty far from the entrance on that side on it's own.

Well, since we stopped at the merch booth on the way out, we stopped at the one on the East side of the pavillion. We were told you could only pick up the bracelets on the WEST side of the pavillion, so we had to cut back across the seating area to get there. Security just was letting everyone through and not saying anything, so it didn't even occur to us that this could be a problem.

Turns out, it was. We got there, and the line was HUGE. We waited a good 20 minutes to get our bracelets, and when we were done, we started to head back to the other side where we had parked. Security, however, had a different idea.

The security guard was a JERK. First of all, I should have had a clue because what kind of grown man calls himself Taz on his work nametag? A jackass, that's what kind. He was all, what do you want me to do? and That's not my problem. He wouldn't let anyone pass. He said that we would have to walk out the west exit, off the property, and around the pavillion grounds to the other lot.

Now, I don't know how many of my readers know the Phoenix area, but I used to live not a mile from this venue. The area around Cricket Pavillion is NOT the safest neighborhood. They provided NO security, NO escorts, NOTHING. We're talking it was 11:30 at night in a sketchy neighborhood and I'm pregnant and tired. I was so freaking pissed. He was like, what do you want me to do, you don't like it call Cricket and complain. I said okay, give me the number and he starts rattling it off. I'm like, do I look like I have a pen? He's like, well, that's not my problem either.

So we hike around the place and get to our car, and I'm just tired and I want to go to bed and I'm thinking, hey, maybe a chocolate soft serve cone from McDonalds will cheer me up. So we drive around on the westside (that's as bad as it sounds) until we find one. There were three cars in the drivethrough in front of us, and we sat there for TWENTY minutes!!! Can you believe that? Three cars!

We finally get up to the speaker, and the kid is like, uh, well we don't have ice cream. I'm like, it's on your menu. He says oh, well, we don't have it right now.

Jackass.

So we go home, and by the time we get there, it's one in the morning. I'm PISSED and frustrated beyond belief and trying REALLY REALLY hard not to take it out on my husband. I go to bed, and the dogs come in and snuggle with me. He comes in, gets them all riled up so they're bouncing off my head, and I'm like, I JUST WANT TO GO TO BED!!! (I'm practically in tears now) so he says fine and gets up and walks out.

Well folks, that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I'm like, you can't even say GOOD NIGHT? After everything that's happened, that's too much work? And then I started to cry.

I cried too much last night. Last night was emotionally draining.

I woke up this morning and I was just tired, and still cranky, and feeling really sick because of not really eating much last night. I had to come home and take a nap for a few hours, so I'm feeling better now. My inlaws got the packages with their frames in them today, so they both called and we chatted with them a bit. Stupid me mixed them up though and my MIL got the grandpa one and vice versa. Oops. I was trying to be so careful to not mix them up too.

Ah well.