Well -- Shit

Since Monday, I have been trying not to panic that I didn't have our tickets to see Carrie Fisher in hand yet. I got an e-mail last April when I ordered them that they would ship on or before Oct. 1. So I figured... I wasn't able to start freaking out until Wednesday. But on Monday night, I was pre-emptively freaking out and so I sent an e-mail to the contact e-mail just to be sure...

I got no reply by Wednesday. I sent another e-mail, and I tried to log in to the system using the e-mail and pin they gave me in my confirmation e-mail and it says it wasn't good. Crap.

I ordered the tickets through chicago-theatre.com, which is still online and advertising shows. How weird. So I called the phone number on the e-mail confirmation and it was disconnected.

Then I called the number on my credit card bill from April. It went straight to a Verizon voicemail box.

Then I look up the Chicago-Theatre.com people's number. I got someone there who explained to me that three weeks ago all of the Nashville Ticket Company (one of the companies that they use to do the actual ticketing and mailing) had gone out of business. No one knew. They just walked in to work and started getting calls. She advised me to call my credit card company and ask for a refund. Then she gave me the e-mail for their legal office, so if the credit card company failed to refund me the money, they were going to take care of it. (My guess is Chicago-Theatre is figuring out legal action because this makes them look terrible.)

I called Chase. In the middle of the call something happened and the dispute woman couldn't hear me, but I could hear her. I was on a land line, so I'm not sure what that was all about.

But she called me back as soon as I hung up. So that was nice. Then she processed a "temporary" refund. I guess the company has 45 days to dispute the charges before it becomes a "permanent" refund.

This is all bad and good at the same time. Bad because -- I fucking really wanted to go see Carrie Fisher. And good because it means Womanthatrolls, who won't be there because of her mother's funeral, will get her money back from the tickets, which is worthless next to losing your mother, I know. But she didn't lose her mother and isn't out a couple hundred bucks.

Oh, and X-man got pushed off a slide today at school. He fell on his head. He's okay, but he has a bruise. Mr. Scott the principal called me when we were on our way back from our Christmas shopping at Toys R Us. He used the generic school tone of "X-man's fine. He hasn't misbehaved. He's not in danger, but he has gotten hurt..." And, of course, my child inserts, "Tell her it was XXX."

Mr. Scott laughs and explains to him that as the principal, he's not allowed to tell me which friend hurt him.

So, if you see X-man walking around with some red bumps on his head. He was the impromptu test subject in a kindergarten experiment with gravity. It was also confirmed that he can't fly. Mr. Scott said he didn't cry, and that the pusher's parents had been called.

That means MacTroll's the only one not to have a head injury in the last 30 days... tick, tick, tick...