Obama Vists Bend. Part 1.0

Last Thursday night I heard a rumor that my political candidate of choice was coming to my humble city of Bend, peaking out at somewhere just of 70,000 residents. I was in shock and awe (bad choice of words). Anyways, you could imagine my excitement when I woke up on Friday to and read the front page headlines of our small town paper "Obama to Visit Bend Sat." The paper went on to state that people who wanted to go to Saturday's town hall at a local high school gym would have to pick up tickets at Bend's Obama HQ (headquarters) between noon and 9p.m. My original plan was to go after work at 3pm to pick up tickets; but the more I though about this, the more I realized there was probably not a chance in hell that there would be any tickets left by then.

So, I decided that I would quickly leave work during my prep (11:45-12:37) to try and pick up tickets. When I left school, I was prepared to stand in line for about 10-15 minutes, get my tickets, and make it back to work (had to leave the HQ by 12:25) before 30 unsupervised 13 year olds tore apart my classroom. As I arrived to the HQ, I realized this was a pipe dream. The line wrapped around about 5 or so city blocks and forced the police to direct traffic around it. With each person in line allowed to get two tickets each, I realized as I walked to the back of the long line that the chances of me getting tickets (and getting back to work on time!) were pretty slim.

Noon came and went and the line hadn't moved an inch. I was hoping (in vain) that they would be able to quickly disperse the tickets without requiring each person to sign up with their phone number, address, and e-mail address. But this was a political campaign, of course they couldn't give away tickets without everyone's information. I had called Ron and he had seen some friends near the front of part of the line that he and Amy joined (read: cut) with them. The people directly behind him didn't appreciate this, so there was no way I could cut it with them. He said that he was getting tickets for his wife and himself, but Amy's husband Cole couldn't go, so she was able to get two tickets and give me one. But if I wasn't able to get another one, that meant that only Carrie or I could go, and obviously this wasn't the best option.

As the clocked ticked past 12:20 (and I had to leave by 12:25 to have any shot of making back to work on time) I realized there was pretty much no chance that I was going to get tickets. I talked to Ron on the phone, who reminded me that people who make things happen get what they want. I realized that he was right on and if I really wanted to go I need to make things happen.

And that's exactly what I did. I left the back of the line (knowing full well that I had a 5 minute window for which to work some magic) and headed toward the front. At this point, the line was moving at a snails pace because sure enough, they wouldn't give out any tickets unless each person had given their info. I being walking the line shouting, "Anyone getting just one ticket?!?" I got a ton of laughs, a couple sneers, and even a few "Yeah, right. Keep dreaming buddy." But I didn't let these nay-sayers discourage me. I wanted to see Barack in person and I knew the only way I could do that was to make an ass of myself in front of people I didn't know for under 5 minutes. The price was way worth it.

After walking the line for about 3 minutes shouting my plea, a nice, young guy about 40 people back from the front replied, "Yeah, dude, I'm just getting one." I ran over to him, explaining my situation (30 13 year olds would be in my room going crazy in less than 15 minutes), I got his phone number and a promise that he would score me a ticket and meet up with me sometime after work. Sure enough, at around 5pm I got a call from him and setup a meeting at Arby's (his choice of meeting places, not mine. Like I want a roast beef and cheddar, ugh... but I digress.) When I picked up the ticket, I thanked him profusely and he told me the following:

"Dude, I totally cut in line to get that spot, so I figured it would be the least I could do to give away a ticket to you to try to make up for my bad karma 'My Name is Earl' style."

I liked the way this guy thinks. So, long story, um... long, I got us two tickets. Moral of the story: don't be afraid to speak up and/or make an ass of yourself to get what you want. And, play the teacher card at any opportunity.

More about the actual event tomorrow.

Me and the wife showing off our Obama town hall meeting tickets.

By the way, could we when the hottest wife with ugliest dude contest or what?
On second thought, we like our jobs... we better not enter for fear of losing them.