Burn Baby Burn!

Ok, I think I fucked myself... So, a bunch of my friends are going to Burning Man this year and said last year was, "FUCKING AMAZING!!!!" I immediately bought my ticket and tried to get my girlfriend one for cheap, but she ended up spending over $300 bones (I spent over $200)! I still felt good about the purchase thinking that it's a hip fun hippie-fest and the ticket price was the worst of it... At this point I now realize, I got BURNED... (muffled chuckle)...get it... see what I did there?... Burn and Burned, contextually different but similar...

1) If this thing is a bunch of drugged up hippies in the desert (which have a special place in my heart for) WHY IS THIS SHIT SO EXPENSIVE?
So far my tally is as such...
$260 (my ticket) +
$360 (my girl's ticket) +
$60 (shitty bike that we'll leave out there) +
$130 (Bike rack that I had to buy for the shitty bike) +
$??? the stuff still pending such as: tape (for the tent), another shitty bike, lights for bike, lights for your person, costumes, and props for said costumes, food, water, and especially drugs... All in all buying this shit isn't the biggest problem, it's the time spent driving around the city and scouring Craigslist that pisses me off the most!
Not to mention I have to call in sick for 3 days of work just to have the pleasure of baking in the hot sun and being caked with sand... oh, and I forgot to mention that I'm a chubby fuck! So I'ma be that fat guy in the sweaty see-through white shirt! (I keep it on out of decency to others)!

2) How do I unload these tickets and bear the guilt trips of friends?
They already expect me to go and it's hard to deflate people's expectations. Now I have to prepare myself for the comments about me being cheap and a flake, which always suck. They'll probably partially blame my GF... that approach gives dudes the freedom to call another dude a pussy. I helped write the book on this technique, DAMN YOU COME-UP-INS!
Plus, and most importantly, I have to come to terms with the fact that as I am grandfathered into the cool liberalisms due to my origins in San Fran...
I must now realize I'm a middle-class cheapo that looks forward to reality TV (even though I tell all my friends it's beneath me),
only smokes weed when others give it to me (too expensive of a habit for my cheap ass),
and sends in a mail-in ballot every year, cause I don't want to be bothered in lines surrounded by the proletariat (plus I don't even think I fill the ballot out right half the time so my vote probably doesn't even count).
All this would make me have to hand in my Bay Area Card, AND PEOPLE THINK I'M A PLATINUM MEMBER!!! That just can't happen.

3) Don't you hate when people tell you to go into something with no expectations?
WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!? If I had no/low expectations why the fuck would I even waste my time! And this kinda malarkey always comes after a guy verbally spews a wad of hyperbole in your ear pertaining to THE BEST______, THE MOST AMAZING______, or _________WAS FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE, but go in with no expectation! FUCK YOU! As my girlfriend would say," for $300 this shit better lick my pussy and shoot me to the moon!" More eloquent pros were never crafted.

So my question to you... my question to myself... SHOULD I GET OUT NOW AND CUT MY $500 LOSSES or KEEP SHOVELING DOUGH INTO IT AND HOPE FOR THE BEST?