Surprise!!

One of Mindy's favourite musical acts is Madonna. She has been a fan most of her life, growing up in the 80's, even performing some dance routines in front of a video camera many years ago...tapes of which fortunately still exist today! She owns her entire catalogue of music, except for the most recent release but I expect that this will soon be added to the collection. From what I know of her, I would guess that Madonna would slot in right behind the Indigo Girls in her "list of favourite acts"...certainly in the top 5.

So, when I received an email announcement on Monday that there was a pre-sale on Madonna tickets for her upcoming tour if you held a Citibank credit card, I figured it might be a nice surprise for her. There is a show in New Jersey in October, actually the North American kickoff concert, and I figured that would suit. On Monday night, I got the necessary credit card from a drawer (I don't regularly use this one) and set an entry on my email calendar to remind me to get the tickets as soon as they went on sale at 10:00am on Tuesday.

Right at 10:00 I was online reserving two tickets to the show - "best available" - which seem close to the stage with a side view...not perfect, but on the assumption that "best available" meant exactly that, I purchased them. Now anyone who knows my musical tastes will know that a Madonna concert is unlikely to be the highlight of my year but I was excited to know that Mindy would have fun. I guess I was looking forward to the joy I would get from seeing her so happy! All day, I was anticipating getting home so I could let her know, imagining her excited reaction to the news. I told her by phone that I had a surprise for her when I got home, which immediately had her trying to guess.

When I got home, I didn't waste any time. "So what is the surprise?". "On October 4, we will be attending a concert in New Jersey". "AC/DC?". "No. Today I got us two tickets to see Madonna in concert". I then waited for the reaction...and waited...and waited. "Are you serious?" was the reply, not even a smile crossing her face. "Really?" she added. I was somewhat crushed and confused. All of my mental build up of this moment had instantly come crashing down at the reality of her total lack of excitement, enthusiasm or even ANY recognition that she might even be slightly interested in this event. It was as if I told her surprise was that she was getting the chance to watch cricket with me on TV or something. So I was puzzled..."I thought you would be excited. Isn't she one of your favourite performers? When we saw her close the UK Live Earth concert, didn't you comment what a good show she put on?". I think I even suggested that I could sell the tickets if she did not want to go. Then I think she took pity on me and made a few comments about how she was happy that I thought to do something nice...how she will get excited once it hits her that she is going...how she was just not expecting this (do you ever expect a surprise?) etc... All of this was a little too late to save the moment.

So I guess this taught me a lesson about building up my expectations. Perhaps she will get more excited as the date approaches, who knows. Hopefully she likes the new album otherwise it might be tough. I certainly got a reminder about what can at times seem like the punchline of a joke about how simple guys are while women are complex and difficult to figure out. Living with 3 girls shows me how true and real this is!