One early November morning, I awoke with a notification on my phone. I called my mother and screamed in excitement. I was prancing around the house, simply delighted—I had a presale code for Taylor Swift tickets. Now, for those who aren’t aware, getting a verified fan presale for Taylor Swift is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

This is only where the story begins. The path to seeing Taylor is a winding one. First, you apply for a presale code. If you are lucky enough to receive this coveted code, you then must wait in line on the Ticketmaster website for hours for even the chance to then buy the tickets.

First, you are in the waiting room, which pre-places you in line when the waiting room becomes the queue. I sat in the waiting room for an hour and a half until the queue opened at 10 AM. During this lifetime, I sobbed in Alexis Colucy’s arms in the hallway. I was inconsolable at the idea of seeing my god (Taylor Swift) in real life. 

Now, for those that know the class schedule, the second period begins promptly at 9:25. That’s my economics class. On this wretched day, I had my Shark Tank presentation. As soon as the bell rang, I volunteered myself and my partner, LeighAnna Robinson, to start and as soon as we finished I declared I would sit on my phone until the tickets were mine. Jack Pecnik, an avid Taylor Swift hater, told me “you will lose an entire letter grade for even looking at your phone.” This was a non-issue given my dedication to mediocrity. 

I sat and stared at the number going from 2000+ people ahead of me in line to 456 people, to 12, to buying my tickets. The glare of the screen practically blinded me. I could not tear myself away from my phone to listen to people talk about mobile oil changes and phone trackers when something much more real and important was happening. 

The Ticketmaster website gives you a nice long ten minutes to select what seats you want and checkout. This seems like a ridiculous amount of time, but I barely made the cutoff. With such an influx of ticket buyers on one website, there were bound to be issues. 

My mother got the short end of the stick. She was in Texas on a work trip, all while keeping an eye on her place in line where she sat for over eight hours. After she finally got in, her code didn’t work. A quick call to Ticketmaster got her a new code, but by then, seats were few and far between.

Knowing this danger I acted fast. In a panic, I picked two nosebleeds seats as soon as I was allowed in. My total came to a whopping 400 dollars, and I put my mom’s credit card information in. Eight separate times the server timed out, but I prevailed, and am now taking applications for a dedicated Swifty to accompany me to Philadelphia on May 12.