After two days and one online fiasco, World Series tickets in Colorado are now sold out. I almost had four of those tickets.

Almost.

Like many other people, I spent Monday morning with two laptops trying in vain to break into the Colorado Rockies’ fortress of ticketude in order to spend $1,000 on four tickets. I don’t know if I’ve spend $1,000 on sports tickets TOTAL in my life, but I was ready and willing to shell out the coin for World Series ducats.

Obviously I didn’t get any tickets on Monday, so I tried again yesterday when tickets went on sale at noon. Once again I had both laptops at the ready (my personal laptop and my work laptop – don’t tell my boss), and I actually had a good feeling about my chances. I sat and watched the automatic countdown thingy run down to zero and then reset to 120…over and over and over. Some 30 minutes later I was doing working away with the counter in the background when – EUREKA – I was in!

I bolted upright in my chair and placed my credit card strategically at the side of my computer as the wondrous ticket purchase page loaded onto my screen. At the top of the screen was a timer counting down from seven or eight minutes – I don’t remember exactly – which made my pulse quicken and my typing worsen. I chose four seats, the maximum allowed, for Game 4 in the best seats available section (lower level box). After waiting about 30 seconds a page loaded that said “Sorry, no tickets available.” I clicked the link to take me back to the selection screen and tried again, and this time I selected the $250 seats in the lower level.

After another agonizing 30 seconds a new screen appeared where I was asked to confirm my purchase. Hooray!

I didn’t even blink at the $1,010 price at the bottom of the screen as I clicked to the ‘register’ screen. The download was agonizingly slow, and I knew I only had three minutes left, so once the ‘register’ screen appeared I quickly entered all of my personal information. I was in such a rush that I probably would have entered my social security number, birthdate, shoe size and greatest fears had they asked. I would have answered anything if I could have just gotten to the last screen.

After breezing through the page and filling out my name, address, etc., I entered my credit card number and expiration date and hit ‘SUBMIT.’ And then…

Nothing.

The screen just went blank. I sat forward in my chair and stared at the computer for a moment, trying to figure out if it was still trying to download something. After about 20 seconds the screen finally changed…and took me back to the countdown screen.

AARRRGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“DAMN IT!” I screamed. I was angry that I lost the tickets, but it was particularly frustrating because I was so close. While it sucked to sit there on Monday and get nothing but error messages, it was a lot worse to actually break through to the other side only to fail at the last minute. It was like breaking out of prison, and as you scale the last fence you land awkwardly and break your leg. I. WAS. RIGHT. THERE.

As I think back to my brush with ticketness, my fatal mistake was probably that I didn’t create an account before logging on to get tickets. I had plenty of time to complete the transaction, but maybe if I hadn’t needed to go to that extra page I would now be the proud owner of four World Series tickets.

Oh well. I’ll still watch the Rockies on TV, and I’ll be rooting hard for them on Sunday when they play the game I should have had tickets for.

But I hope it snows. A lot.