The most impossible task in the world
I've decided today that the most impossible task in the world is to win concert tickets from a radio station.

I hear of people doing it all the time. I've heard it at least three times this weekend. But I don't understand how it is done.

I've tried. Several times. This weekend. I want to win tickets to Sheryl Crow in March. I am too cheap to pay for tickets. But I want to go. So I thought, hey I'll win tickets and then I can go for free and that will be more fun than going for non-free.

Not so easy, my friends.

Is there some trick to winning tickets? It seems simple enough. Listen to the station. When you hear the signal to call and be caller 10, call. Be caller 10. Win tickets.

First, I can only stand to listen to one radio station for about two minutes. I hate radio. I've had the worst time making myself listen to this station long enough to hear the call-for-tickets signal. Which is part of the problem.

I'm trying to do something else while I have the radio on (like type this blog, or watching TV with the TV on mute), but I get bored and I quit paying attention to the radio. Then it's too late. Once you hear the signal, it's already too late to START calling. You have to start dialing, like, yesterday to get through when it's time to call.

I have the phone number on speed dial. But no matter how quick I am to hit "send", over and over, every time I get a busy signal. How do people get through?

I've been tracking the times during the hour that they do the ticket giveaways, so that I don't have to sit here and listen all day. I only listen when it gets close to time for the giveaway. It's not entirely consistent. This is a problem.

And why are so many people listening to a radio station in the middle of a Saturday? What are all of these people doing that they have nothing better to do but tie up the phone line and win my tickets? I'm about to go insane listening to one station for so long. I'm not sure free tickets to Sheryl are worth this torture.

They've played the same songs over and over again, all day. Really, I'm not listening that much. It's just on. Yet every time I turn it on or pay attention, it is a song I've already heard at least three times today. I've heard Electric Avenue like, four times.

THAT IS JUST MEAN!

It's like only 18 songs exist in the whole world, and the challenge for radio stations everyday is to play those 18 songs in a different order, hoping to fool anyone who is listening.

I am not fooled. I know there are only 18 songs in the world, and I've heard all of them today...108 times.

Give me my tickets. I've earned them by effort alone.

C.T.