Not losing my ticket

It has been, Dear Readers, a wonderful concert, although not without stress in getting there and being there.

I had left my ticket, attached by a fridge magnet (an amusing sheep, if you are interested), on the fridge since it arrived. But today, in case I was detained outside all day, and then had to rush off to the Stables, I thought it better to transfer it to my wallet.

But you know how it is with wallets and concert tickets. The tickets kind of stick out a bit at the top. And I was becoming worried that I might pay for something with a £5 note, dislodge the ticket, drop it and not notice.

So I kept taking the ticket out of the wallet every few minutes to check it was still there. But then I worried that I might only have the address slip part, and not the actual ticket. So I pulled the ticket off the address slip part, and put the address slip in the bin.

But I was concerned that I might have put the wrong part in the bin. So I checked the ticket in my wallet. It was definitely still there, and definitely still the ticket part. So I relaxed.

Until I wondered whether I had the right day. Sure, the ticket said Friday 11 May. I knew it was Friday. And the PC sad it was 11 May. But was I sure the PC was right? Maybe I had a ticket for the wrong year. And so I asked Eileen what day it was, what month, what date and what year. They all checked out. I had the right ticket.

But had I mis-remembered the date, I wondered? So I took the ticket out of the wallet and checked the date again. It was the right date. I put it back. Then put the wallet in my pocket. But I worried that it might have fallen out as I put the wallet back in my pocket. So I took the wallet out and checked. Put it back, and worried again.

I set off for Wavendon three hours early, in case I had a fake ticket. They assured me it was fine, but I wasn't coming in just yet no matter how safe it made me feel. So I put the ticket in my wallet, put my wallet in my pocket, and drove back to Husborne Crawley. They don't have real ale at the Stables, so I was not worried about drinking later on - driving was fine.

I found Eileen, told her that how worried I was about losing my ticket. She suggested putting it in my wallet, and then putting the wallet in my pocket. I explained that was what I had done. She said that was all right then - but I explained that was my point - how could I be sure it was still there and hadn't dropped out? She suggested that was unlikely, but in all honesty I couldn't be sure without opening my wallet and thereby collapsing the wave-function of ticket location. I checked it out. It was there. I put it back in the wallet, the wallet back in the pocket. Eileen watched me do it - promised me it was definitely there.

I walked round the corner, and it occurred to me that she could have been lying.

So I put the ticket in a glove, and put the glove on my hand. Realised that I could easily lose the glove, so put a wicket-keeping glove on over the ordinary glove. Taped the keepers' glove round the wrist, so nothing could possibly fall out.

Then I realised I wasn't sure I had rightly remembered putting the ticket in the glove.

In the end, I got to the concert. It was brilliant. But I did not take any notes of the lengths of the songs, or consult my notes as to precisely when a Mellotron noise was required for perfect accuracy, to check that G2 were a valid and accurate Genesis tribute band. Instead I was worrying too much that an any minute the Wavendon Ticket Police would realise that I was there with a false ticket, that I was the only person at a sold-out gig sitting in a seat that was fortunately vacant (and even more fortunately had the same number as the fake ticket I had accidentally purchased) and they would drag me off and I would miss the rest of the concert.

So as I say, it was a marvellous concert. G2 are a wonderful band.

I just wish I had enjoyed the day more.