I have lived in new york city for nearly three years. In that time, I have been to the Rent (the musical) lottery multiple times. Much like I have been to the lotteries for many other shows all with no success. The only time my name has ever been drawn for these discount front row tickets ($20-$25) was a day when there were three of us, so we had to say no since we couldn’t all go.

Meghan and I have been hitting the Rent lottery once a week-ish lately and have never won. The thing is, we don’t even expect to win anymore. We talk about our evening plans like this “okay, so we’ll put our names in the Rent lottery then get dinner and see a movie.” This is what we’ve been doing for the last two months. It’s just our routine. We don’t even think or talk about what we’d do if we won as we know we never will.

And then came today. I told Meghan before we went that we were going to win. That because today is tax day and I had to give up $15,000 and we were both excited about the movie we were planning to see after we lost, that we would win. The universe would cut us some slack and today would be our day.

So, we get down there and put our names in and then we’re standing there chatting while they start to call names as we’re pretty sure we won’t be hearing ours. And then, strangely, the first name called is “Brianne Genow”. WHAT? Meghan and I were both so shocked that neither of us said anything. Usually when people win, they yell or shout or give some indication that it is them. Meghan and I stood there speechless and then I slowly and very unexcitedly walked into the box office. It was so surreal.

Even now, hours after the show is over, I’m still shocked that we actually won. The best part (or the part where the universe decided to slap us in the face) is that two names after mine was called we hear this “Meghan Skahen”. Uh, excuse us? Today we won four tickets and every other day of our lives for three years, we can’t win a single one? RUDE!

Later I’m going to tell you about the ridiculous conversations going on around us pre-show, but for now, just enjoy the fact that Meghan and I got to see Rent one more time. You just can’t see it enough. For serious. Once is not enough. This is time 8 for me and that’s not enough. All Rent all the time. Please enjoy this clip. It’s the opening sequence from the movie version of Rent. If you haven’t seen it then you must not have spent much time in my company and you should see it soon.