I had just about given up any hope of see Hamilton live on stage. Tickets are just too expensive and hard to get. You really have to buy season tickets just to get a chance to see the production here and two seasonal theater passes never seem to make it into our budget. Probably a month ago, Talaura sent me a message to remind me to enter for lottery tickets to Hamilton, which was good because I had completely forgotten that the Hamilton productions set aside a number of tickets for a lottery. In fact, I no longer even had the Hamilton app on my phone (Gasp!). I downloaded the app and then entered the lottery for every show date it would allow.

Then I forgot about it.

Last week, I received notice that I had won the lottery. This alone is thrilling. I don’t understand why confetti never just spontaneously falls from the sky any time any one hears that they have won a lottery. Now, Hamilton lottery tickets are not free. You still have to pay for your two tickets, but the tickets are $10 a piece. TEN FREAKIN’ DOLLARS TO SEE HAMILTON. I am the daughter of a man who never forgot to ask about his AARP or Senior Citizen discounts. Seeing a hugely popular Broadway production and only spending $20 for tickets has my inner penny pincher dad jumping for joy. The down side is that I had no idea where we would be sitting. The email you print to redeem the tickets says something about possibly sitting with an obstructed view and maybe not being able to sit together.

Tuesday morning, Michael walked into the bathroom to finish getting ready while I was in the shower. He said “I heard that are seats are in the first or second row.” I replied “Well, I heard that we may have a partially obstructed view and may not be sitting together.” This started the ball rolling. “I heard the seats are way at the top.” “And I heard they make you work as an usher for the first half.” “I heard the seats are backstage.” “I heard the seats are in the alley behind the theater and you have to view it through a peep hole.” This has been our back and forth for two days. On the day of the show, Michael texted me to say that our seats really were in the first or second row. He provided a link to a blog post from another lottery winner. I said “I heard our seats were on a SpaceX rocket and we’d have to watch from the space station.” I just could not wrap my brain around getting front row seats for $20.

Is there anyone out there that remembers Chris’s bit about seeing Robert Goulet in Camelot? When he first started telling the story, he got distracted because he said something about how he had a really good seat. Then someone in the group asked “How good?” To this day I don’t think any one knows what Chris thought of Camelot or Robert Goulet’s performance because he went off on a tangent about his seat. “The seat was so close, I could have shined Goulet’s shoes. It was so close that half way through the show, Robert Gulley asked me to carry him around piggy-back style to finish the show.” He went on and on and each incident was more ridiculous and hilarious than the last. Of course, I could not help but think of Chris and Robert Goulet while Michael and I volleyed back and forth with how bad our seats might be.

Michael and I were still joking about our seats while we ate tacos in the car before the show. He said “I bet our seats are in the second row.” I looked up at the white painted wall we’d parked in front of in a parking garage and said “These are our seats.” I don’t know why, but this was the funniest one. As it turned out, our seats were in the second row, almost center. I don’t think I’ve sat so close to a stage since Mom took me to see A Chorus Line when I was thirteen. Not a single member of that cast was of a color other than white. All white. All skinny. All making the idea of ever being a person who was not skinny, not white could be on a stage impossible. The fourteen year old girl sitting next to me last night said “This is way better than Disney+” and I think that reaction alone is the reason why I greatly respect Lin-Manual Miranda. He created something that inspires and excites all ages, genders and ethnicities. Last night we watched the most diverse cast give a spectacular performance that made us chuckle and cry.

Our seats were so close, at one point they asked me to pick up slack in the percussion pit.