PAX Drama for the Mama

If you've been hiding under a rock, you may not have known that Mr. Dude is just slightly excited about PAX Prime.

And that he's had me on "PAX Alert" ever since PAX East 2014 ended about a decade ago.

Or maybe it just seems that long.

Tickets sell faster than lightning strikes, so he had me turn on notifications for @Official_PAX on Twitter. And he always made sure that at least one of my thousand open browser tabs was the registration site. And he was diligent in letting me know when his meetings at work would start and end so I'd know when I could talk to the love of my life during the day so I knew when I was responsible for dashing to the computer in a frenzy in case ticket sales went live.

It got to be rather ridiculous, actually.

And then there was that one morning nap time [for Little Guy, not me - unfortunattely] where a Twitter notification came through and Mr. Dude called all at the same time.

It. Was. Go Time.

Good thing the browser tab was already set to the all-important prime.paxsite.com/registration [I may or may not have just typed that out from memory. I think I'll plead the Fifth on that one.] so I could just click on the "Badge Sales" button without thinking too much.

Do you remember when you were a small child how tempting something became simply because it was forbidden?

You didn't actually want the cookie until mom said you couldn't have it. And you never really cared about your sister's doll until your dad said you couldn't take it. And you had never even thought that the movie would be cool to watch until your mom said you weren't allowed to go see it with your friends.

That's what PAX did to me and my "refresh" button.

Seriously?!?! NO refreshing the page? The page will redirect automatically and I just have to be patient?!?! 

But ... but ... but ... 

Somehow, I knew that if I followed directions, I'd be okay. But it certainly didn't feel like it. 

The tech gurus who ran the PAX website would know better than to tell a bunch of geeks that the page would automatically redirect if the page wasn't going to automatically redirect, wouldn't they? I mean, talk about the most embarrassing tech snafu you could imagine, right? Screwing up registration for a nerd convention? 

It still took everything I had in me to not hit that refresh button, though. 

I think I just didn't trust the nerds enough. 

Meanwhile, my adrenaline system was on high alert, shaking hands, shallow breathing, accelerated heart rate and all. 

Must. Get. Tickets. Must. Get. Tickets. MUST. GET. TICKETS. 

Mr. Dude got into the queue just before I did and managed to snag two each of the four single day passes. 

Success! Breathe! Relax! 

Wait. No four-day passes? 

Nope. They all sold out. In FIFTY SECONDS. 

[Can we just pause right here? ... What kind of crazy world do we live in where there are so many nerds desperate to get to a conference that they stalk a site so that over 80k tickets are gone within just a few hours? Not all of these people are the stereotypical kids-posing-as-adults living in mom's basement and playing WoW all day. Lots of them actually have families, really good jobs and friends. But I digress.]

So, if you want to know where Mr. Dude will be for all of Labor Day weekend, you've got your answer. If you actually want to see him that weekend, then you'd better have scored some PAX Prime tickets. If you're lucky, you'll be there the day that Mr. Dude, Little Guy and I all show up in our cosplay. More on that to come. 

Meanwhile, I think I need to go make myself a nice cup of tea to calm down again after reliving that harrowing experience. I'm getting too old for all these adrenaline highs.