The Most Nerve Racking Experience Of My Life...

Was purchasing passes to the 2011 Comic-Con International. We've been going to this convention for the past eight years. I've been pregnant during two of them. My little boy has been twice. And this year, my little baby girl will get to go as well.

Getting tickets to the world's largest pop culture convention was not easy. It has gotten so famous that for the past couple of years it's sold out completely months before it began. This year, however was epic. Tickets went on sale in November 2010. A few minutes after online registration opened, the site crashed due to too many people trying to buy tickets. A few weeks later, the same thing happened. EPIC, the system handling the registrations shut down again, and became associated with the phrase "Epic Fail."

February rolled around, and hardly anybody had tickets. While I was in the hospital giving birth to my beautiful baby girl, Comic-Con tickets went on sale yet again, and sold out within minutes. Thus, our only hope was to wait for the resale of the refunded tickets in June.

This past Friday, I checked the Comic-Con Facebook page and found out that 1500 of the 4-day refunded passes would be going up for sale at 10am. That was 45 minutes away! I quickly put the baby down for a nap, provided an activity for Bean, and stared at my computer. A couple minutes before 10, I began refreshing the page to make sure I didn't miss it. Then the site began to slow down, and I feared it would crash again and I wouldn't get on. Frantically, I refreshed again and this time I got through. I stabbed the green button to buy tickets and was put in a virtual "waiting room." This waiting room told me that there were 1081 people ahead of me. Every two minutes, the page would automatically refresh and tell me where I was in the line. As the seconds ticked on, my heart began to pound and my hands were shaking! About forty minutes later, when I was at number 131, the page told me that badges were running low and that we would be notified if they sold out. I thought I was going to have a heart attack, but on the next refresh I was whisked into the payment area! I leaped and with quivering fingers I pounded out my info. You were limited to two passes, and you had to buy each one separately. I GOT BOTH. I still can't believe it. We're going to Comic-Con!

The next day I felt really sick. I had a bad headache, I was dizzy and I couldn't stop shaking. I'm pretty sure it's because of my experience getting the tickets. It was totally worth it though. We can't wait to go. Hubby has even said it's his happy place and I couldn't agree more.