What to do when the Post Office loses your Foxfield ticket

USPS, you had one job

This is the weekend that kicks off finals. The weekend that drips notoriety – Vineyard Vines, Croakies, Lilly Pulitzer, and of course: the binary combo of Cane’s and Burnett’s. Alcohol consumption galore.

That is, until your ticket never arrives and FOXFIELD IS LITERALLY TOMORROW.

This is not a drill, I repeat this is NOT A DRILL.

To cope with this experience, I put together a guide of how to buy your Foxfield ticket and what to do when your ticket fails to grace your mailbox with its presence.

Step 1

3/31/16

Purchase your ticket before April 1st seeing that it’s cheaper. Check.

Step 2

4/5/16

Wait for the ticket to be shipped. Check.

Received an email that my ticket was shipped on April 5th. Brilliant!

Step 3

4/5/16 – 4/15/16

Check inbox every few days. Apparently, the ticket should be there after 10 business days. Apparently they’re wrong.

Step 4

Friday, 4/15/16

Begin to panic, but only slightly. Today’s the 10th business day. Disregard that your ticket promptly arrived after four business days. It’ll be fine… right?

Step 5

Monday, 4/18/16

You may now panic. Foxfield, it has been ten days. Why do I not have that shiny little ticket in my hand. I wanted that ticket. It’s OK, just because you’re nice, you’ll still give them one more day to get their shit together.

Step 6

Tuesday, 4/19/16

Nope, it seems that the Post Office is just as bad as you right before finals week. Still no ticket. This is where you call customer service. What could go wrong?

Everything. Everything could go wrong, starting with the problem encompassing being put on hold for thirty five minutes. That is 2100 seconds of my life listening to The Dave Matthews Band on endless repeat that I just will never get back.

Step 7

Tuesday 4/19/16 (35 minutes later)

Finally! You speak with a rep from customer service.

Except then you get disconnected.

Step 8

Tuesday 4/19/16 

Call again and hope to God you don’t have to wait for another 35 minutes.

Fortunately, you don’t have to – but unfortunately, all customer service advises is to wait since they can’t track the ticket (seeing that there was no tracking number when purchased). Why is this a thing??? They advise me to wait one more week and inform me the worst case scenario: if I am not to receive my ticket, then I must drive to Foxfield the day before and pick it up myself.

I am starting to resemble that cat on Facebook, Pusheen.

Step 9

Wednesday, 4/20/16

Check your mailbox every day. Maybe it’ll appear.

Nope, why would you think that would happen?

Step 10

4/21/16-4/25/16

Cry. Continue to check mailbox everyday.

Step 11

Tuesday, 4/26/16

Foxfield is THIS Saturday and surprise! No ticket can be found. I resort to calling customer service. Again. I have to deal with the same Dave Matthews Band music. Again.

I am on hold for thirty minutes.

Step 12

Tuesday, 4/26/16

Hang up and try again. Surprise (2x)! I make contact with some person on the other end of the line. I explain my problem. He transfers me.

Sigh. More Dave Matthews with the occasional aggressive cello piece.

I am finally reconnected.

Step 13

I meet a nice chap named Scott. Now, at least Scott helps me out, but what he has to tell me is not pretty. “We are sorry to inform you ma’am, but I’ll be honest, it has been a bit – well, disorganized this year. We’ll have to place you on a roll call sheet.”

Roll call sheet? What happened to picking it up manually.

“Uh, well, we were informed to tell people that, but well that uh… changed… I think. Hopefully you won’t encounter any problems at the gates…”

Step 14

Attempt to not yell at Scott. Do not kill the messenger.

It changed??? Oh, okay. How about I change your policy and have you refund my ticket – then we can talk about change.

Step 15

Yell at the wall because Scott may not be too helpful, but he is nice.

Step 16

Hope for the best – hope that Foxfield will take me in with this “roll call list”… because if not, I might have to see a horse from outside of the race — and then I don’t think I’m ready to not properly Foxfield.

#Tbt to when I was peaceful and didn't have to worry about my Foxfield ticket since the POST OFFICE DIDNT LOSE IT LAST YEAR

A photo posted by Muhlisssaaa (@spiritofmanassas) on Apr 28, 2016 at 2:14pm PDT

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