Sex Pistols Back Out

I sort of have a bad habit. If anybody asks me to do anything six weeks in advance- and there's glimmer of 'yeah maybe I'd want to do that then...' I'll just say Yes. I mean it's six weeks off. Right? I'll probably want to go.. then. But deep inside I know that when the time comes I'll not want to do whatever it is. Not sure what the logic is but it seems nice to have plans or something. I keep forgetting that I usually don't like doing things in general.

So this happened six weeks ago when a friend of mine was getting tickets for the Sex Pistols at Jones Beach. Six weeks ago I agreed to go. And tonite's the night! And of course there's nothing I'd like to do any less. Not that I have anything against the Sex Pistols I saw them a few years ago and they surprisingly rocked. But I realized around 2AM last night that if I seriously was going to go to the show I'd have to do alot:

1. Get a car somehow.
2. Figure out how to get to Jones Beach from Brooklyn.
3. Figure out what a 33 year old bald dude wears to a Sex Pistols show at Jones Beach.
4. Get motivated.
5. Drive to Jones Beach (1.5 hr drive min)

All of these things are very difficult for me and on top of it I'm not all that thrilled to see the Pistols again- especially in like and arena like Jones Beach which is like a weird setting for them. You'd expect them to be in a dark club. Not in the place seemingly built for Dave Matthews. I mean the Sex Pistols? Here? And when I started adding up everything, I heard the little chant in the back of my head going 'Back! Out! Back! Out! Back! Out!' 

It's getting more difficult for me to cancel stuff last minute as I get older because I have this thing where I actually feel the need to 'keep my word' more than before. But I was thinking about throwing my word down on the sword today because I simply couldn't see myself doing what I needed to do to get to Jones Beach. So I did the next best thing to the official 'back out'... I did the official 'feel out'. I called up my friend with the tickets and implied that I wasn't completely into going just to see them... And boom! Relief. I could tell he didn't really want to go tonite either. We conferenced in the other person who was going. She didn't want to go at all! She was just going because we were going. And it was a hassle for them to get out there too.

At that point it was game over. It was just a matter of time until we said the words that we were going to eat the tickets.

So I took a financial hit that seems totally worth it and I learned the same valuable lesson for the 7000th time. If I agree to do something, the time will come that I will actually have do the thing that I said I'd do ...or back out..  Just because something is six weeks away does not mean that it is not a part of a future reality. And next time when someone asks me to do something off in the distance -really give it some thought before saying yes. And keep your word. Unfortunately this lesson doesn't seem to stick and I find myself in this situation way too much.

Dags! I keep giving myself my word that I won't do this again. Not sure what the problem is...

ok bye!

tOdd

PS. Here's a Pistols song that's fitting...