My Reputation Precedes Me… Again

Last Tuesday I was standing in a queue outside the Melkweg in Amsterdam, waiting to see Flight of the Conchords live on stage. I’d been looking forward it for weeks and had shown up early with friends to make sure that we got good seats. We were not the only ones that had had this idea either. There were a lot of people queuing. I knew there were more friends somewhere in the queue, as well as some coworkers and a fellow blogger that I had not yet met in person but was probably going to bump into.

After an hour of waiting in the queue, just 5 minutes before the doors were going to be opened I discovered that I had made a small error. This came to my attention as my friends began to look over their freshly internet printed tickets. I noticed that they each had two print outs. I on the other hand had only one print out. This seemed worth questioning.

“Why do you guys have two print outs?” I asked.

They looked at me and laughed, assuming that I was making some kind of joke. I wasn’t.

It turned out that in addition to being emailed our tickets we had also been emailed a membership pass for the Melkweg. Without realizing this I had only printed one of the two. Of course this was not a problem if I had only printed out my ticket and forgotten the membership pass. I could simply show my ticket to the doorman and pay the 3 Euros membership fee again. A small loss but at least I would still be able to see Flight of the Conchords. No problem.

However, if I had only printed out the membership pass and not the ticket I was in trouble. Guess which one I had not printed out.

I gasped. My friends gasped. Nearby people I didn’t even know gasped. There was only one thing for it. I had to get back to the office and print out my ticket, quickly.

I sprinted passed the entire queue, jumped on my bike, cycled like hell back to the office, ran past the security guard, dashed up the stairs, turned on my computer, waited, gave up waiting when it got stuck on configuring updates for too long, commandeered the computer of someone else who was working late, printed out my ticket, checked very carefully that it actually was my ticket, dashed back down the stairs, passed security, jumped on my bike, cycled as fast as I could back to the venue, locked up my bike, ran inside, showed my ticket, searched for my friends, found my friends, dropped down in to the seat they had saved me and tried to catch my breath. I was out of breath, sweating, red faced and looking like I had just ran from a crime scene. It was at this point that the girl sitting in the row in front of me asked, “Excuse me but are you Stuart?”

It was Alison from the blog A Flamingo in Utrecht. My reputation has preceded me once again.

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The concert was great. If you are not familiar with Flight of the Conchords they are a comedy band from New Zealand. Here are some of their songs: Jenny, Business Time, Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros, Most beautiful Girl in the Room.