on attempts to ticket purchases – part 1

I originally meant to post this up a few weeks back (draft saved: Nov. 21 =p), but it would’ve made me look rather… awkward if things didn’t end up working out.

So, at the point in which I first wrote this, I was in a bit of a mixed state of mind: excited, anxious, guilty, nervous, impatient… and anything else synonymous to the aforementioned adjectives.
And t’was one of those days that I felt like doing a really lengthy explanation, when it, in actuality, could simply be put in a few sentences.

Thus I hereby present the short-and-sweet version (aka moral of the day): When in doubt, try tapping mom and see what kind of (pleasantly and hilariously surprising) response you get. It never hurts to try, and it’s amusingly surprising the chances of getting a positive response.

Didn’t quite get the story? Read through the rest of this entry =p

Usually, my plans for the holidays, if I were to be going back “home”, would consist of the following:
- slack at home (that, by the way, would be in Osaka, Japan, not blah-blah residence @ UBC)
- start opening packages of random merchandise that accumulated over the past 6-12 months of not being in Japan
- play around with whatever merchandise I feel like fiddling around with
- head over to my usual source of anime/manga related merchandise
- poke around other random stores – eg. bookstores, music stores, whatever else
- maybe head over to Tokyo/Yokohama to pay my bro, relatives, and/or friends a visit

Now this time around, my stay in Osaka coincides with something I’ve been wanting to do: go watch a PoT musical.
Yes, you heard me right – I’m attempting to grab a ticket for Tenimyu.
This first had to go through mom – as lame as it may sound, this was absolutely necessary for me to complete this “mission.”
What needs to be considered is the fact that the performance I’m attempting to grab tix for is during the first few days of January (alright Tenimyu fans, you can probably guess which cast I really want to see if you check the “guest” casts in the schedule).
Coming from a Japanese family, and considering the fact that I’m going to be home with my parents and other family members, I’m somewhat obliged to stay at home and/or go out to do some New Years prayers with them on those first few days of the new year.
The prospect of me ditching them for that won’t really look nice, nor will it be pleasant should my parents find out I went off grabbing tix and whatnot without their consent (and yes, this consent should be asked in advance).

Getting mom to say “OK” was easy enough, but the actual process of buying tix ain’t really that enjoyable, especially when you’re competing with extremely hyped and anxious fangirls (this is about as mild as I can get in describing fangirls, and this comment is not to be taken offensively in any form =p).
And being overseas, I’m limited to ordering tix over the internet – well, OK, yes I *can* make long-distance calls, but when the chances of calls getting through is slim, is it a worthwhile investment to spend a fortune on such calls? I think not.

As with ticketmaster and the like, the site I’m attempting to get tix from seems to not want to take methods other than credit card payment. Alternate options include paying at convenience stores or by e-money, neither of which is doable without assistance from others, ie. mom, brother, or friends who are understanding enough – dad, in this case, is out-of-question, as he isn’t as accepting of my interests in anime/manga =p
Another problem with credit card payment is the fact that there is absolutely no way there will be a match between my billing address (in Canada) and my mailing address (in Japan) – should this become an issue, obviously I’m screwed.

So I first turn to my brother (residing in Japan btw), as I feel more comfortable talking about this kind of stuff than my mom.
The response: “Dude, sis… not today, I’m taking my French Proficiency Exam.”
…is it me failing or my bro failing?

Alright, plan B (for back-up): I turn to my friend in Japan, who’s planning on buying tix for herself. She generously agreed she’ll attempt to buy tix for me as well, and that was that.

Additionally, plan D (for damemoto – worth a shot, but low chance): I turn to mom, and well what a cruel daughter I am to nag her bright and early at 8:30am JST.
Alright, here are the moments of my lolz this afternoon–email conversation b/w me and mom (btw, this was all in plain text and was in Japanese, so any font changes and whatnot is added by me)
me: Yeah, I hate to be asking you this on a Sunday morning, but may I kindly ask that you’ll charge my e-money account?
mom: OK, just tell me what to do and I can do it for you. By the way, can you try to go to the afternoon performances?
(me: WTH how come she knows about the performance times and stuff, I never told her that!)
message I meant to send: Will do, here are the instructions, and it’d be great if you can do this by 10am.
message I got from mom right before I was about to hit “send”: By the way, do you just want me to grab the ticket? I’ve an account with the place you’re ordering from.
message I ended up sending back: Oh… um, yes please, but in case your calls or whatever doesn’t go through, can you still charge my account regardless?

I cracked up the moment I saw “want me to buy tix for you?”
Oh wow, I really didn’t expect that coming from you mom.
I mean… OK, me being me, I tend to want to do things for my personal leisure on my own as much as I can, and the thought of asking mom to grab tix for me simply didn’t come to mind at all.

Well, so much for my friend and my attempts to work all this out.
More on what ended up happening with the actual ticket acquisition in the next entry =p