Every year at Christmas, the Catholic school in town rents out the commuter train to put on a fund-raiser based on the book Polar Express. On a short ride between Port City and the next town, volunteers dressed as Christmas characters read the book, distribute hot chocolate, and lead the riders in Christmas carols. The kids wear their pajamas, and a good time is had by all, even I. I am surely in the minority in my hatred of Polar Express (see: my aversion to the Santa Claus myth, and also general curmudgeonliness and hatred of sentimental crap), but I can’t resist the thrill the kids get out of riding the choo-choo! choo-choo! CHOO-CHOOOOOO! as Minor says.

A few years ago, the event was run on multiple weekends, and I was easily able to get tickets from someone in the mother’s club who could not go. Last year, though, they were forced to cut it down to one day, and I could not get tickets for love nor money. This year I vowed to buy on-line tickets the moment they became available, which was, according to the web site, “early November.” I checked on November 1st, and they were not yet on sale; a few days later, they were sold out. There was a link on the web site that said, “Click here to be notified for ‘priority seating’ when next year’s tickets go on sale.” Figuring it couldn’t hurt, I filled out the on-line form.

A few days later, I got an e-mail from “Santa” saying that some additional tickets were going to be released at 7:00 a.m. the following Thursday morning. I had the forethought to set an alarm, and at 6:55 a.m. I was sitting in front of my computer, credit card at the ready, refreshing the screen.

At 7:01, about 70 extra tickets were put on sale. I quickly bought four. About an hour later I checked back, and they were all gone. I could just picture fifty or so middle-aged pajama-clad women out there in Greater Port Cityland — women who used to stand in line overnight to buy Rolling Stones tickets or repeat-dial Ticketron to get Bruce Springsteen seats before they sold out — frantically tapping on their keyboards and wondering where their youth had gone.