I set the alarm clock on my cell phone to get me up at 8:45 so I'd have time to clear my head and mentally prepare myself to attempt to buy a kidney, nay, playoff tickets online. The odds, of course, were stacked against me.

Playoff tickets are hard to come by and for the Panthers there were only about 8,000 tickets left after the season tickets holders were done. The prospect of a home playoff game seemed too good to pass up. The newspaper has been clearly stating "When playoff tickets went on sale in 1996 (the last time the Panthers made the playoffs), they sold out in 30 minutes." Though the newspaper clearly stated THAT it implicitly stated "Don't be stupid. You can't get tickets you moron! Who do you think you are?" The Panthers web site stated you could get tickets at the Stadium Box Office, a physical Ticketmaster outlet or at ticketmaster.com. It also stated that tickets go on sale at 10:00 AM. Being that I am 14 hours away from the stadium I cleverly deduced that online would be the best bet. I logged onto Ticketmaster.com last night to bookmark the event page and it also stated that tickets went on sale at 10:00 AM but failed to mention a time zone. I went from Eastern to Central on the drive home so I figured on 9:00 Central, though the site didn't explicitly state it.

You're going to have try harder than that to keep me from getting tickets!

I logged in this morning a little early and tickets weren't on sale yet. I refreshed the screen a few times and finally it gave me the option to buy at 9:01. I select 4 tickets at $40 each and hit submit. I enter the stupid verification challenge password and continue to wait. Damn you 31.2 Kbps dial-up modem! It's tough to revert back to a dial-up after having a cable modem for so long. I wait and wait and finally the screen comes up stating "There are no tickets available meeting the criteria you selected."

So I go back to the main screen and select 4 tickets at any price, best available. I type in the challenge password and wait and wait and it returns me 4 tickets at... $275 each. I immediately begin to dry-heave.

So I go back to the main screen and give up on getting 4 tickets. I type in 2 tickets at $55 each. I type in the challenge password and wait and wait and it returns me 2 tickets! I immediately get delusions of grandeur and think if I can get 2 I can surely get 4.

So I give up the two tickets and go back to the main screen and select 4 tickets at $55 each. I type in the challenge password and wait and wait and finally the screen reads "There are no tickets available meeting the criteria you selected."

Arghhhhhh!!!!

So I go back to the main screen and tell it again to give me 2 tickets at $55 each. I type in the challenge password and wait and wait and finally I get the screen that reads "There are no tickets available meeting the criteria you selected."

Oh no!!! What have I done?? More dry-heaves.

At this point it's like 9:12 and I'm thinking that this is really going to suck. I had them and I gave them up. So I go back to the main screen and tell it I want 2 tickets at $60 each. I type in the challenge password and wait and wait and finally it returns me two tickets! Seat location: section 547, row 22, seats 22-23. I buy the tickets and finish my transaction and revel in my newfound playoff glory.

Life is good.