ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A Betoota Heights mother has secured four tickets in the Taylor Swift presale today, but it has come at a huge personal cost.
Cair Granger hasn’t had a beer since 1996. This afternoon, she’s had a pint.
“I don’t know why, I just needed to have a drink, and this was the first thing I saw,” she said.
“It’s been a long day.”
Since early this morning, the mother-of-three watched the Ticketek page refresh and refresh. Nothing. Nobody told her she could do other things while the page did its thing. So she sat and watched.
Cair watched as the hours went by, as her mind slowly drifted off into some sort of primal coping mechanism. For a moment, she thought she would just close it and admit defeat. Lie to her daughters about not being able to get tickets. She was going to say that the line was just too long, and what could she possibly do when there were 800,000 other people in the country doing the same thing.
But as she unclipped the laptop from the charger to take it into the bathroom, the page refreshed and asked where she would like to sit and which card she would be using to pay.
“My mind thought it was a mirage. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” she said.
“That was a few hours ago now. But it feels like I’ve been out in rough seas all day, and I’ve only just landed back at the dock. I’m still at sea; I can’t feel my legs.”
Four tickets cost pretty much a week’s pay, but while that would usually make her hesitate, this time it was like that first cigarette on a Middle Eastern layover on the way to Europe.
“You’d pay $50 for that cigarette,” she laughed.
“Do you have any? I haven’t had one since I fell pregnant with my first, but today, I think I’ll have one.”
Our reporter patted their breast pockets and shrugged.
“What a fuckin’ day.”
More to come.
