every quarter, our megacorp likes to hold meetings in hotels & force everyone possible to attend. they'll speak for a few hours about the wonderful things our megacorp is doing (typically ignoring that our particular company is not doing so well), show us financial slides & even videos, serve us a few refreshments, & usually give out tickets to something or other as a door prize. these are some of the most boring events i've ever been to... but on the other hand they're on the clock, so it's that much less time i must spend doing real work. so i always go.

this week that meeting was at 9:30am monday. yes, the first thing monday morning. they're lucky i'm an insomniac because their presentations sure weren't enough to keep me awake, & although there was coffee, nobody ever came around to give us refills. i know at least one person who did fall asleep, & i can't blame him.

the refreshments were naturally a continental breakfast, which means muffins, bagels, & danish. there was a glass of orange juice at every seat (but like i mentioned, you had to be sleeping with the management to get refills). & instead of giving out a dozen pacers tickets or anything like that, they gave out 2 pair of luxury-suite seats to the incredibly-overpriced u2 concert coming to town in may. & i won a pair.

even before they announced the winning numbers, i'd already begun to form a plan for what i'd do if i won. it was pretty simple: i would try to find a date. i personally don't care too much about u2, but they've done some stuff which was pretty listenable, so unlike literally every other show that has come to the conseco fieldhouse, this was one that i'd be willing to attend (not eager, but at least willing). surely there were some pretty young females out there who would be interested in seeing them for free. of course it was just an idle fantasy to keep me distracted from the soporific speeches going on at the podium; i didn't expect to win & would not have cared if i hadn't. but when they announced my winning ticket number, i knew this was one fantasy that could come true.

even when i first had the idea of trying to find a date for the concert, i was vastly underestimating u2's popularity. sure, they were multiplatinum in the '80s & early '90s, but supposedly their "pop" tour was a flop from what i'd heard, so even though i knew they had a new cd out which i think even won a grammy, i naively assumed that they were no longer the media gods they had once been... now demoted to mere star status instead of superstar or superdupermegastar. it didn't take long to realize my mistake.

almost immediately people started asking about the tickets. most people would just mention them politely, but a few did have the chutzpah to ask me outright to give them tickets (i don't blame them. were it not for the plan, i very well might have). i also found out pretty soon just how much those tickets could be worth: the lowest-priced tickets are $45, if you want a seat it's $85, & these tickets are supposed to be for a luxury suite. so by my estimate these tickets could be worth $100 or more each.

i began to realize that my chances of getting that date weren't as slim as i'd thought. there was always (& is still) one particular girl at the top of my list, the one who must refuse me before i'll even consider someone else. i think she must be new at the company, because i can't remember ever seeing her before the past few weeks. we've only spoken a few times, & i don't even know her name yet. all i know for sure is that i sure hope she's a u2 fan.

but if she doesn't want to go, i have a few other people in mind. plus i have close to 2 months to find someone to go with (concert is may 10). which is the crux of the dilemma: not only do i need to scam a date for the concert, i need to use that date to scam more dates which would take place before the concert. because there's no way i can set one date for 2 months from now & leave it at that. normally i wouldn't think myself capable of such sophisticated macking, but i have u2 tickets. i can use those to reel in the girlies who normally wouldn't have anything to do with me. such is the power of the u2 ticket. then once the concert has passed & the intense power of the tickets is used up, just like in a silver age comic i'll learn that the power of the mack daddy was truly inside me all along...