Angels come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  Many times they can also be people or pets.   When someone comes through for you in a very unexpected and helpful way I believe they earn a special pair of Earth Angel wings.

Last Friday was my daughter’s fourteenth birthday.  The Tuesday prior I headed off to WalMart to order her birthday cake.  I don’t shop at WalMart, but they make great birthday cake so we always order from them.  As I was walking in something told me urgently to check my email.  I have several email addresses and the urge was specifically to check my gmail.

I worried that a client might be in serious trouble so I pulled out my iPhone to check my email & was totally floored to see an email from PaulMcCartney.com that a ticket pre-sale for his Houston show had begun at noon.  The current time was 12:08.

Paul’s my favorite and I’ve seen him perform four times before, but still, the email made my heart race, my vision blurred as my blood pressure probably shot up sky high, and I nearly ran into the store so I could find a spot to stand from where I could order tickets via my iPhone.  The bad thing is I wear bifocals and I can have a difficult time reading things off my iPhone.  The way the purchase screen was set up the fields into which you were to enter your name, address & credit card information were tiny and would not enlarge no matter how many times I tried.  I knew then I was in serious trouble.  I contemplated going back home to finalize the purchase on my computer, but by then 15 more minutes would have past and more tickets would have sold.

I was totally excited and went up to the bakery counter where there was only one woman working.  I asked her if she would help me with my phone and she nodded yes and smiled.  I then excitedly told her that tickets for Paul had just gone on sale. It was then I realized she didn’t know much English, but she recognized Paul’s name, but was all confused over what I was trying to tell her.

So there I am trying to recall my Spanish from high school (that was over 30 years ago!) and there she was trying to understand my broken Spanish and replying to me in broken English.  We made for quite a pair!  I managed to motion to her my eyes, blinking and showing her I had trouble seeing.  She nodded in understanding, then I showed her the order form for the tickets on my iPhone telling her, “no puedo hacer muy grande” (“I can’t do this bigger”).  She told me in Spanish at that point she would enter all my information for me if I would just read it off to her as she could see perfectly well.  Since she didn’t have anything up her sleeves or to write with, I shared with her all my information, including my credit card number.  I had to spell my street address to her since to translate it in Spanish she would have typed it in Spanish, which never would have worked.  So I had to remember how to pronounce a bunch of different letters of the alphabet.  Then I had to recall most of my numbers when I read off my credit card number to her.

All the while the woman was looking at me like I was stark raving mad.  She appeared frightened and she didn’t want to get too close to me and she remained behind the counter with my iPhone plugging in my information as I struggled to translate it all into Spanish for her.  There was a guy at the adjacent deli counter who kept looking over at us and was laughing the entire time while the woman who was helping me shot him dirty looks.

It was cute.  Her broken English, my broken mispronounced Spanish, but in the end, about 10 minutes later we had it all worked out and she pushed enter.  She smiled at me and said, “buena suerte” (“good luck”).  Then we both waited for the notification to come to my email that I had indeed gotten the tickets.  Meanwhile, she made sure to stay behind the counter even when I told her I had come there originally to order a cake.  The catalog for the cake decorations are on the customer side of the counter so when you show them the design you want the person comes out from behind the counter to write down its number and take down the information for the cake order.  However, she stayed behind the counter and got a chair so she could stand up and lean over the top of the counter to see which design I wanted that was in the catalog!  She was that afraid of this crazy woman who spoke bad Spanish, but was literally crazy over Paul McCartney tickets.

So, as I’m choosing the design, then giving her the information my phone goes off.  There’s the email and I squeal at the top of my lungs, “I got them!  The tickets are mine!  I’m going to see Paul again!”  Meanwhile, the dude behind the deli counter gave out a loud cheer while the woman smiled and said, “stupendido!” (“stupendous!”).  I walked out with the cake for my daughter ordered and knowing I had Paul McCartney tickets that would soon be mailed to me.

If it had not been for that apprehensive woman’s kindness at the bakery counter I would not have gotten the seats I got.  When he comes to Houston Paul will be playing at Minute Maid Park, which is where the Houston Astros baseball team plays.  The top dollar tickets were all on the level playing field and there were six sections of seats there. By the time I got into the presale the entire field was sold out.  I have been to numerous Astros games (however, not to see them, but to see the Chicago Cubs when they’d come to town – sorry Houston) so I knew EXACTLY where I wanted our seats – field box section 129, and I wanted within the first 15 rows since we’ve sat there before and they are awesome seats.  I ended up with seats in section 129, row 11!  So I am one VERY HAPPY camper!

Other than the first time I ever bought tickets to see Paul, back in 1989 (I got in line at 3 AM & made friends with some people with whom I’m still friends with to this day, so that was a great experience), this was the most fun I ever had buying concert tickets for anyone.  Looking back it’s a wonder the woman just didn’t call for security because I was so frantic.  I wonder if she’s hoping I’ll never come back?  I hope not because I fully intend to make a special trip there just to see her to thank her and show her my tickets once I receive them.  Here’s hoping she won’t take one look at me coming and call security.