My road to the White House began in our family room, at a Girl Scout troop meeting, last September.
“So, girls, where should we go this year? Is anybody interested in visiting the White House in Washington, D.C.?”
Blank stares, no response, and then, a raised hand from my daughter,
“Can we go on the Spy Tour?”
These 12-year-olds had little or no interest in visiting the White House.
Fast forward to March, after an intense election year, and my daughter is jumping up and down because I scored tickets to the 2009 White House Egg Roll,
“Do you think I can get Obama to sign my T-shirt?”
Our venerable president, chief executive of the United States, commander-in-chief of our armed forces, has achieved cool rock star status with teens. Hurrah!
Meanwhile, I’m wondering if I’m any more mature than my daughter, as I sunk a whole day into scoring those hot White House Easter Egg Roll tickets.
Checking Off The White House From My Life’s To Do List
Even though I was born in Washington, D.C. and lived there, off and on, for several formative years; and despite regular visits to our nation’s capital, I have never gone to the White House.
It’s one of those places I keep meaning to see, but that I put off until there is good reason. Kind of like how I didn’t get around to visiting the Museum of Natural History, despite living in Manhattan for ten years, until I took my kids years later on a science field trip from Albany.
The White House is one of those places that I want my kids to visit so that they can gain a full appreciation for our nation’s heritage, and our responsibilities as citizens. It’s also one of those good-for-them activities that moms plan for their children, but which requires finesse to get them to swallow.
I guessed that they would enjoy the experience more if they could take friends, and since it’s easier to get tickets for a White House tour if you take a group of ten, I tried to arrange to go with friends who live near the capital. Unfortunately, as their Spring Break and ours are one week apart, we couldn’t find a day when we could all go together.
Serendipitously, my friend – a lifelong D.C. area resident – mentioned that she’d been wanting to take her children to the White House Easter Egg Roll. It wasn’t exactly the kind of educational visit that I had in mind, but it was taking place on a day when we were all free.
Plus, the kids were way more interested in attending a party on the White House lawn, than they were in a historical tour indoors.
Fierce Competition for 2009 White House Egg Roll Tickets
After a little sleuthing, we discovered that the tickets would be available online on Thursday, March 26, 2009, but we didn’t know if that meant at midnight or at the start of business hours.
My friend is an old pro at dealing with the competitive DC parent environment, where parents will line up at 5AM to secure a spot for their child in a 4th Grade class play, even though applications wouldn’t be accepted until 7:30AM. When we wanted to register our kids for summer camp at the National Zoo, we synchronized all 4 parents – one per child – at the precise 10AM opening online in early February. By 10:15 AM, anyone wanting to register their child was out of luck.
It’s cutthroat, no holds barred, competitive parenting, and now the golden ticket was open to outsiders. For the first time, you didn’t have to line up for tickets several days before the roll, giving us out-of-towners a shot. It also presented an opportunity for scalpers anywhere in the world to get their greedy little hands on the coveted items.
Even with tickets available for tens of thousands of visitors, competition was fierce.
Online Ticket Frenzy
In our homes, one near the nation’s capital, another in New York’s Capital District, while their children slept, two moms dared to take on the 2009 White House Egg Roll Online Ticket Event.
We loaded the White House Easter Egg Roll site, fingers poised for action just before midnight, and waited. At midnight, we hit refresh, and again, and again. After awhile, I went to sleep, hoping that tickets wouldn’t be available until business hours.
At 7AM, before I’d even had a shot of coffee, I was back at it, poking the refresh button, and sending status updates to my friend via email.
I missed the opening of the ticket competition because I dared to get a cup of coffee, but I was back at the refresh button at 8:04AM. That’s when I discovered that I would have to sign up for a Frontgate Solutions account. Precious moments lost in registering and verifying, getting timed out by an overtasked server, before I was back at the ticketing page.
Oh, the frustration! For every move forward, there were many more where I got the gray dysfunctional server warning. Elation as I secured tickets for six, agony as the server died at the verification point. Mixed messages where I tried to select fewer tickets, thinking I’ll just dump a child. It wasn’t pretty.
I turned to my friends on Twitter to see if anyone knew what was going on, was anyone getting tickets? Using Twitter Search, I found three tweets from triumphant competitors, and many more from the befuddled masses.
And then, at 2:20 PM, just when I was giving up all hope, and my refresh pokes were getting weaker and further apart, it happened. The ticket section page was back on screen, and my request went through quickly, without a hitch. Yes, I too was a winner of six tickets to the White House Easter Egg Roll!
I called my friend, who also was losing all hope as well as any desire to attend this event, and she went back to poking the refresh button. I haven’t heard from her since then, perhaps the victory wasn’t sweet, or maybe she didn’t get through, and doesn’t want to think about which kids will be left behind.
Empty Victory
My kids are thrilled to be going to this event. It will be a grand way to introduce them to the notion that the White House is a symbol of a government that is for the people by the people.
And yet, the whole experience of securing tickets to an event that embraces the American public leaves me with a hollow feeling of empty victory.
I wish that parenting wasn’t a competitive sport, I really do. I’d like to live in world where we all get along, and everyone agrees to do their best for every child in the village. (Cue in It’s a Small World.)
Unfortunately, basic principles of supply and demand apply. In this case, it was for a frivolous desire, but often similar scenarios apply when advocating for important items such as Gifted or other Special Needs Education.
In comparison, this was an easy battle, I didn’t even need to strap on my gladiator sandals.
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