The day had finally arrived!  The Adam Lambert concert was finally here!

The concert was downtown, an added, but not insurmountable challenge.  I took the extra precaution of reading their website about parking.  They had their own parking garage on the block next to them. They were making this really easy.  I have managed to get my “parknaphobia” under control for the most part, but just in case I entered the address of their parking lot into my map app.

My well-orchestrated plan when off without a hitch except until we got lost looking for the theater. By the way, using your map app does not work when walking.  All it did was confuse me more. After wandering around for 10 minutes I asked a couple for directions.  We still arrived there with plenty of time to spare.

The show was amazing!  Adam’s voice was just as good in concert as on his recordings.  The lights, music and sound were great!  We loved every minute of it.

I’m not a demonstrative person by any stretch of the imagination, but I did stand, clap and sway a bit during the concert. I even yelled a few “wa hoos”.   My outside appearance didn’t give away the excitement and utter joy I was experiencing.

I had expected old ladies and young teenagers to be the only ones there.  I was surprised by the mix of couples, children, teenagers, young women and there were some gay men.

A very enthusiastic, dressed to the nines 65+ sat next to me.  She danced through each song like it was his last (or hers).  At one point she nudged me with her shoulder and asked, “Are you a Glambert?”

“Uhhh, I don’t think so,” I said. I do know what the term is, but I’ve never been comfortable being one.  Most of my family just loves to rub it in though.

It was about 11pm when the concert ended.  Leaving the theater we followed the throng of concert goers headed toward the parking garage.

When we got there nothing looked familiar.  The colors were all wrong and the building didn’t have the numbers “410” on the outside of the building. After feeling like I was losing my mind for a moment I figured it out I must have driven into wrong garage thinking it was the theater’s garage!  The problem? I didn’t know where my car was because the only address I had was the theater’s garage.

We started walking confidently looking for our garage. We were in such a good mood from the show that we were even joking about what a good story this would make.  I mean how many garages could there be in this area? We were being naive about the severity of our situation.

While setting out on our quest, were realized that we couldn’t retrace our steps because as I wrote in the beginning, we got lost on the way to the theater!

We walked around and around downtown in the dark of midnight looking for the #$%*! garage with the “410” on it’s wall.  As if you couldn’t tell, I am terrible at navigation.  Not just regular “I’m not good with directions” kind of terrible,  I have been known to turn down the wrong street driving home.

Slowly our dire situation began to unveil itself!  I am a woman, you know that, and I had my very beautiful 13 year old daughter with me.  I felt a little vulnerable. Some of the blocks we went down were dark and having to cross to the other side to avoid homeless men sleeping on the sidewalks was really making me afraid for our safety.

Allison kept telling me she recognized some things from our walk to the theater.  Instead of letting her guide me I kept saying things like “let’s just take a look around this corner” and “no, I’m sure that’s not right”.

After 45 minutes or so of this I was beginning to worry.  My only hope was to find policeman.  They would know what to do.  Instead I found an angel disguised as a bicycle rickshaw operator.  As a side note, he looked like Robert Plant.

With great reluctance I explained our dilemma. Strangely, his face lit up and he said he loved a good challenge!  He offered to drive us around the area looking for the garage.  As Allison and I climbed into the seats I glanced across the street.  There it was on the wall ….the numbers “410”. I honestly could’ve kissed our angel /Robert Plant impersonator!  I gave him a tip and he waited until we drove out of the garage before he rode off.  What a great person. He really made an impression on me.

There is a silver lining to this story.  Allison and I never once gave up, panicked, cried or argued.  We just kept on going.  I also must give credit to Allison.  Almost from the start she recognized businesses and landmarks.  I think if I hadn’t found the rickshaw driver first we would’ve ran into it ourselves because of Allison.  That was a good lesson for me, I need to trust her more now.

It was 12pm when we finally got to the car.  I hugged Allison and drove home.

When I retold this story to family and friends, my family wasn’t particularly surprised. In fact I think it was Tristan who said,” So just another day for you?”