If you actually remember the internet of 1997, you’ll understand this when I say I have absofuckinglylutely NO CLUE how or where I found it, but one Friday night, I was hanging out with my best friend Nate at her work surfing the internet (Geek Girls Night Out!) and came across a notice that Elton John was going to be on the Tonight Show in 2 months. Seriously? I mean, even NOW with allllllll the information online, I don’t think I could find what guests are going to be on the Tonight Show in 2 months to save my soul.

Hey Nate! Tickets are free! Let’s see if we can get some! Yeah ok Julie, you go ahead with that. We have to get up at ungodly hours and stand in line for HOURS before Ticketmaster even opens (this was “back in the day” before Ticketbastard started the current Lotto system and it MATTERED if you were in line first) just to *maybe* score tickets to a concert in a venue that holds 30,000+ and the little Tonight Show studio holds HOW MANY? Of course we’ll get tickets.

So the next day, off I go to the post office (yes, remember, this is 1997) to send NBC a request for 2 tickets for the date Elton was to be a guest. Every day after that, I’d run down and check the mailbox. No tickets. Days go by. No tickets. Weeks go by. No tickets. Oh well, it was fun to try anyway.

A week before “the date”… *one* week… when I had all but given up on the whole deal, I found myself standing in front of my mailbox looking in my hand at an envelope brandishing the famed “peacock” logo. Oh how nice of them. They actually acknowledged that I sent a request. So I open the denial letter… and out slid…

Two tickets.

Wait…. WHAT?!?

Oh. My God. We got tickets!!! Wait. Oh shit… we have a trip to plan.