That's Not The Toilet

In preparing to write this post, I found myself focusing on my college memories.  College was a time when wonderful and awful things seem to be happening constantly, at a furious pace.  Yet I wasn't much of a party-er in college (and I'm still not).  So I don't have that many hilarious drunken stories to share.  However, there is one night that sticks out in my memory.  It wasn't my best or worst or stupidest moment-- just kind of a crazy thing that happened, to my roommate.  And thank god it didn't happen to me.  I would never recover.

One night, my roommate-- I'll call her Leigh (the names have been changed to protect the embarrassed) was hanging out in our dorm room with some of our guy friends.  Around midnight, I announced that I was going to bed.  Leigh sort of rolled her eyes and left with the caravan.  I was definitely a social person and enjoyed the company of all of those people- but also rather conservative and straight-laced, and I guess she thought I was a bit of a party pooper.  I didn't care, because I thought she was obnoxious and a bit of a loser.  Though overall, we got along just fine.

A couple of hours later, I heard something and woke up.  It was a Leigh with one of the guys-- let's call him Keith.  They were giggling in her bed and making out.  Now, normally this would send me into a fit of rage.  We (Leigh and I) had actually recently talked about the concept of bringing a guy to your room when your roommate is there and we both agreed that it was so ridiculous it wasn't even worth discussing.  It's something that we never would do to one another.  I know a lot of people who think all bets are off in college, but we weren't that way. Or at least Leigh pretended to be when we had talked about it.

So anyway, Leigh and Keith are in her bed, and instead of getting up and yelling at them and kicking him out, I remember thinking "whatever", rolling over, and going back to bed and literally not being bothered at all.  Looking back, it's so crazy to think that I ever would have reacted that way.  I think the gods were looking out for me-- knowing how much I would relish retelling this story for years to come.

A little while later that same night, around 3:30 AM or so, I woke up to the feeling of someone sitting on my legs.  It was Keith.  He was doubled over and completely out of it-- I had never seen someone so drunk before and rarely have since.  I said, "Keith!  Keith!  Get up!  Are you okay?  Keith, you have to go back to your room."  Keith lived one floor below us.  He kind of mumbled back to me.  I said, "Keith, do you need me to help you get back to your room?"  He said something that approximated "No" and got up.  He proceeded to almost make it to the door, but was about six inches too far to the right.  He began marching in place into the wall, seemingly perplexed that the wall wasn't opening up and allowing him to leave.

Okay, of the three people who witnessed this next chain of events, I was the only one who was sober.  And I remember it very clearly.  The other two folks have no recollection of this and I'm sure would like to believe that it never happened.  And yet, it did.

Keith walks over to Leigh's bed, where she's sleeping.  He stands right by where her head is. And then he starts peeing.  I'm not kidding.  I start screaming, "Keith- stop it, that's not the toilet.  Leigh- get up!  He's peeing on you!"  Leigh sort of sits up, and she's in a total daze. Keith finishes peeing, and then says, "I'm so sorry.  Oh my god, I'm so sorry."  Leigh says, "Keith, go to your room."  Keith says, "I'm so sorry."  Leigh says, "Whatever, don't worry about it, just go to your room."  Keith proceeds to leave, without zipping up first I might add.  His roommates later told me he didn't get to the room until about 5 that morning.  So where he was, unzipped, all that time, I have no idea.

Anyway so back in the dorm room, Leigh rolls over to go back to bed.  She's obviously still drunk.  I say, "Leigh- get up.  You have to change your sheets before you go back to bed."  She says she's tired.  I say, "Leigh- that's disgusting.  You need to change those sheets."  She retorts, with 'tude, "Yeah, well I really don't care." And with that she's back to sleep.

The next morning, a Friday, I woke up early for Intensive Intermediate French, which met every day.  I look over at Leigh, and she's rolling around in the bed like nothing ever happened. I thought, well this is going to be interesting, and headed off to class.

When I returned, Leigh was in our suitemate's room discussing the night before.  She was horrified.  But not at the peeing fiasco.  She didn't remember that.  She was embarrassed that she hooked up with Keith and brought him back to her room.  I proceeded to report on the night's events, and she was appropriately mortified.  She immediately changed her sheets and begged me not to tell anyone.  I then proceeded to tell anyone who would listen.  Leigh was pretty full of herself and often made very rude comments directed at me.  I didn't feel the need to protect her.  

Sadly, the Leigh and Keith saga continued for years, and this incident is not close to their lowest low.  I don't talk to Leigh much anymore, and I'm sure if I did I would like her a whole lot more than I used to.  She was only 19 back then, and rather immature in many ways.  But I will always be grateful to her for bringing that ridiculous night into my life.  Everyone needs those kinds of experiences, and I got to be a part of one without being directly involved.  And I learned a valuable lesson.  Be nice to people-- if for no other reason than you never know what they might have on you one day.

A Stroll Down Memory Lane...

My freshman year of college was an exciting and interesting year. I went to Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. A liberal arts college which I attended on both academic and athletic scholarship. I arrived two weeks earlier than the other students so I could begin training with the cross country team to prepare for the upcoming season. Our coach had set all the new athletes up so that we were roommates with another girl on the team. I remember being very excited to get a chance to spend so much time with someone who had similar interests and schedules as I did. Coming from a big family I had no problems sharing a room with somebody else, in fact, being by myself was a little too intimidating. The summer between high school and college I romanticized what it would be like to stay up as late as I wanted, sleep in if I wanted, have no rules or regulations. I wondered if my unknown roommate and I would become best friends, if she would be strict and regulated (like some distance runners can be) or if we would be completely different. I knew very little of my soon-to-be roommate except that her name was Sarah, she was a sophomore and was transferring from the University of Hawaii, but was originally from a small town in Oregon.

So I packed up my little 1999 Saturn brim full with all my belongings and made the 7-hour drive from Boise, ID to Salem, OR. Looking back, I am surprised that my parents let me leave for college all by myself. But, I was hungry for adventure and looking forward to this new chapter of my life. I showed up at my dorm, grabbed one of my duffel bags, and headed in to meet my new roommate. I was excited and anxious to see what she would be like. I walked into room 304 and was immediately greeted by a petite, brown-haired girl who was appeared to be a little shy. “Hi, I’m Sarah!” she said and welcomed me with a warm smile. We spent a few minutes with the regular ‘get-to-know-you’ type conversations. All of the sudden something silly came into conversation and we both burst into a fit of giggles. I don’t even remember what was said at the time, but I knew instantly that we would be great friends.

In a lot of ways Sarah and I were very different. I was extroverted, outgoing, and into ‘girly’ things. Sarah was quiet, a little shy at first, and more ‘outdoorsy’ than me. But we were perfect compliments for each other. As I look back at that first year of college, I realized that all my best memories were with Sarah and I wouldn’t have had the same experience if it weren’t for her. We shared some very funny moments and also some very silly ones. I started to jot down some of the times that make me laugh or smile when I dig them out of my memory.

*The trip to the Oregon Coast – Sarah and I both had crushes on these two twin brothers who lived in the building next to us. Their names were Loren and Laurence. We would stay up late and talk about the two-word conversation that one of us may have had with one of the twins and imagine about what it would be like to date on of them. The four of us were all good friends and had a big group of people that we would often hang out with. One weekend everyone decided to go to the Oregon Coast. Sarah and I had strategically planned it so that we were in the same car as the twins. Anyways…to get to the point of the story…there were probably about 12 of us on the trip. We had gotten there a little bit earlier than everyone else and decided to build a large bonfire. We had all brought our sleeping bags and the plan was for everyone to just camp on the beach. The twins, Sarah and I started to build this huge bonfire that we had planned. We loaded up a HUGE pile of wood, lit it with some kerosene, and watched as the flames erupted. After about 5 minutes we all noticed that there was a terrible smell protruding from somewhere….we started looking around and spotted one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen! There was a beached shark only a few meters from where we had just built our bonfire!! Some creature had come over and taken a huge chunk out of its belly area so the shark’s intestines were spewed all over the sand. It smelled putrid and we were in a bad situation. We couldn’t very well move the bonfire…it was enormous and would take hours to burn out. Plus, we didn’t have enough wood to start a new one. But, this was a large shark and the smell was so disgusting. After a few minutes of everyone saying, “not I!” somehow I got stuck with the job of dragging the shark to a different part of the beach. Luckily, the twin I favored stepped up and decided to help me with it. We each took one side of the tail, held our breathe, and drug the shark as quickly as possible to the other side of the beach. I quickly took out my Purell and tried to get the nasty fish smell off my hands, but it was impossible. We ended up having a great night, but what a memory! I will never forget the night that I dragged a half-eaten, rotting shark across the beach of the Oregon Coast.

*The Condom Experience – Sarah and I did some pretty silly stuff. This memory has some embarrassing but still funny recollections. I remember one night we discovered there were a bagful of free condoms that the health center had hung on the door of each room in the dorm. Sarah had heard this story that condoms could stretch insane sizes before they would break! We were 18 and immature…plus neither of us had ever really taken the time to take a part or examine a condom. So, I watched as Sarah unwrapped one of the bright purple condoms. She opened it up to see how big it would stretch!! We were laughing and giggling, all of the sudden one of our dorm-mates came over and showed us that they would even stretch over your foot!! We were kind of grossed out, but doubled over in laughter at the sight of our overweight dorm-buddy walking around with a condom over his foot. This led to a few other condom “discoveries”. We learned that if you put a condom around a quarter and push the quarter tightly into the end of the condom you can do your laundry for free! You put one quarter in each condom, push in the quarters, and they come back, but the washer machine will register as if you put money into it! Occasionally you would lose a quarter or two when the condom would break, but we saved a LOT of money by getting free condoms from the health center!

*Midnight Running Club – Sarah and I were both on the cross country team. Although we were running a lot of miles each week (around 50-60) for some reason we both were gaining weight! I can contribute the weight gain to the unlimited amount of cafeteria food and the grotesque amounts of calories we would feed ourselves. Although we were running a lot, we were eating too much, too often, and not healthy enough. So, in an attempt to shed the extra ten pounds we had gained, we started the “Midnight Running Club”. Each night at midnight we would go for a 10-25 minute run (in additional to the regular workout we did with our team earlier in the day). This was crazy, I know, but we did some pretty silly stuff. Anyways…it was working pretty well until one night we got bored of running around campus and decided to veer off-campus into the city. This was a huge mistake. We ran into homeless people sleeping on the streets, and some very sketchy characters. I remember being so scared that night. I swear to this day that we were being followed! Sarah thinks it was only a pizza delivery guy who couldn’t find the house he was to deliver to…from that night on one of us would carry a little hand-held bottle of mace that Velcro-ed to your palm.

*Goldfish – Sarah and I had gotten this little fish tank and put a few goldfish in there. Well, for some reason we could not get them to stay alive longer than a few weeks. So, we started this tradition (don’t ask me how this idea came up) where we would name the current person we were ‘interested’ in after each one of the fish. If the fish died, then we cut it off with the guy. And we actually stuck to it for a few months!! It was a good excuse for neither of us to ever get very serious with anyone.

*Dance/Clean/Dance – I am not the most organized person in the world. Usually I am actually a bit cluttered. Sarah was the opposite, very organized and tidy. Well, this posed a problem because we were living together. My half of the room would always be a disaster and her half of the room would usually be super organized. After a while, my bad habits started to wear off on Sarah and she wasn’t liking it. She noticed that she would become a little untidy or get messy herself and that bothered her. So, somehow we came up with this hair-brained idea that would make the idea of cleaning a little more enticing. We decided that we would clean for 5 minutes, dance for 2 minutes, clean for 5 minutes, dance for 2 minutes, etc. I still remember the first time we did this and at 5:01 the song “I feel like Dancing” by Leo Sayer started playing on her computer!! We broke into hysterics. You have to remember, we were two scrawny little white girls who had no rhythm and really couldn’t dance at all. But it worked!! It motivated us to clean and organize our room while still having fun.

The list goes on and on….at the end of that first year Sarah ended up transferring to Boston University and is now getting her Masters at Vanderbilt. I transferred to another liberal arts school in Idaho for the remaining three years. Sarah and I rarely talk anymore….our lives have gone in different directions. But, my best college memories are from that first year. If nothing more, I learned to laugh and enjoy life more than I ever had up to that point.

Bonfire of the Stupidities

"Parts of the Hamptons are a well-known playground for the rich who own summer homes
there as well as a seaside resort frequented by the residents of New York City during the
summer months for weekend getaways..."

That's what Wiki says about the place where I grew up. The place where I spent, not only my summer weekends but my summer, winter, spring and fall weekdays as well. The kids who would come out with their families every summer would ask me where I live and I'd say, completely blind to the cultural gap, "Here...?" An old-money 13-year-old once said in response, "Here? People live here in the winter?"

Wiki goes on to report:
"Many year-round residents find the term 'Hamptons' to be misleading..."

Indeed. Though I don't personally find it misleading since to me "Hamptons" is a place defined by its multiple personality disorder. It just is... it's two things alternating, and at once. In the summer it wears crisp Polo and in the winter it wears a hooded sweatshirt with the cuffs cut off with a pair of scissors.

In the colder months the shops and the ice cream drive-in would close down, you couldn't park in the beach parking lots after dark, there were no more concerts at the gazebo, the flowers and shrubs were neatly wrapped in burlap. Us local teenagers spent a lot of time watching our breath make steam in the cold air at the 7-11 parking lot (which was made, per code, to look wooden and quaint) waiting for someone to give in and invite everyone back to his house.

It took us four years to discover a place we could go-- undisturbed, unsupervised, all-access. In 1998, a small group of Westhampton Beach High school seniors discovered Spinny Hills.

Though deep within Long Island's precious pine barrens, none of us idiots could ever point to it on a map-- the only way we even knew it was there was because it was at the end of some kid's street- some boy who'd stumbled upon it (literally) one night while looking for a place to drink beer alone, without his parents finding out. And that's exactly what Spinny Hills became- a place for us to escape adults, and potentially, looming adulthood.

It was unclear whether it had been discovered by lost teenagers before us, just looking for a place to hang out. Certainly it was an old trail-- the buzzing echoes of ATVs and dirt bikes had long since been heard. At some point, the location had been used as an illegal dumping site- there was lots of old furniture laying around and large, indistinguishable pieces of metal, wood, cardboard.

Our Spinny Hills was several muddy clearings in the middle of the woods, linked by narrow, sandy trails. This video, here, really captures the essence of this simple place. Though it seems much bigger in my memory.

Every weekend, we would drive into the clearing through an otherwise less-traveled side street in East Quogue. I'm sure some, if not all, of the residents of that street called the cops about the weekly teenage caravans. Some cars were too small to cut through the mud and would have to park near the entrance and either walk in or get a ride from someone. My best girlfriend drove a JMC truck we called "Jimmy." She could drive right into Spinny's and once into the clearing she'd speed into a series of donuts- so fast that the entire backseat of her old tuck would come right out and it'd feel like we were floating in space inside our rocket.

Then like everyone else, we'd park, get out and sit on the open flat-bed of someone's pickup, or on the hood, or open the car doors and turn on the radio to the highest volume.

I saw our class's top academic do a keg stand at Spinny Hills.

One of my clearest memories was the night of the spontaneous bonfire. Well, only spontaneous in the sense that someone spontaneously had the idea to start lighting stuff on fire. Not like it was a miracle.

I'm not sure what happened first-- maybe it was a cold night and someone was considerate enough to think to warm us all with the heat of cavemen. Maybe someone was playing with a lighter. Maybe someone dropped a lit cigarette and the whole thing was an accident. But first went in a few pieces of wood, and that burned really well, made a decent flame. Then a couple of guys carried in the small, disgusting love seat that had been in the woods for months, and dropped it into the fire. And the fire grew. Someone added the load of flattened cardboard boxes that was also part of the trash heap... and then a lawn chair... some plastic pipes. Our bonfire was huge and it made all the drunk boys act like lords of the flies. People were screaming and chanting and laughing-- daring even more ridiculous pieces of trash into the fiery sand pit. Every time something went in, the fire dipped down at first, then roared high. Fights broke out around the fire- the biggest kid in our high school emerged from the convulsion with blood on his T-shirt, but he didn't appear to be hurt. He released a battle cry and held an old mattress high over his head and dumped it into the pile with great dramatic flair. Everyone cheered. The mattress broke down in small explosions, letting out a sprays of snow-like fibers. It rained over us, as we watched it drift into the cold night air. The stars were bright over the tree-tops.

The following Monday everyone was talking about the craziness. (Apparently someone got their face broken in the melee? I never saw a "face cast" on anyone though, so that one couldn't be verified). And there was some talk of toxins in mattresses that get released in especially high intensity when burned. We worried for about five minutes.

After that, the group at Spinny's experienced another night that could have ended much worse-- in fact, all nights could have ended much worse, but didn't. I think that thought only crossed our minds after the fact, like most 18-year-olds probably.

On this night one of our friends-- "Teddy," a guy with a history of alcohol-- went missing. He was a benign guy, super funny- just drank a lot whenever we all hung out. I'd always gotten the impression he'd been drinking for years and years. I'm not sure if this was true at the time.

This night, though, we couldn't find Teddy anywhere. We checked in all the parked cars, but no Teddy. And it was late and dark, in the woods, the guys had been drinking, people wanted to go home... He could have wandered anywhere- we never knew the depths of the pine barrens at that location.

Finally, one of the group's leaders, "PJ," stood on the back of someone's truck and hushed everyone until he had silence and then announced:
"Everyone, we're looking for Teddy. He's missing. We're going to all drive around Spinny's with our brights on and try to find him."

The last car to park at Spinny's pulled out first. And trudging slowly through the mud, every car followed. It was our well-intentioned, drunken, surprisingly-well-organized search party. Driver looked left, passengers looked right. Some of the pickup trucks had people standing in the backs with flashlights, screaming his name. We passed through clearing after clearing-- every section looked just like the last one. The possibilities seemed endless. At what point do 18-year-olds call the cops for help?

We completed what appeared to be one, full revolution, bringing us back to the charred remnants of our historic bonfire and the first car pulled into his original spot... then the second... but one car up ahead didn't pull in, he stopped. Everyone stuck their heads out to see what was the hold up.

Lying on his belly in a thick layer of mud, was Teddy-- smack in between two deep tire tracks from one of the cars that had pulled out-- right over him.

I mentioned miracles earlier. This was a miracle. He had somehow rolled under a car and passed out-- slept as the car pulled out over him. When we found him, Teddy was snoring.

Eventually the cops caught on to us. At first they put up a wooden barricade. We moved it aside and drove past it. We moved it back in place on our way out. Not really the point the police were trying to make I imagine.

The next time we tried to go to Spinny's there was an old car in our entrance. It was banged up and had no engine.

We never went back.

I wonder what goes on in Spinny's now? Are the dirt bike tracks in use again? Have the local kids found some other way to sneak in there and hang out- laugh and act stupid? I hope so.

Steak and Shake

It is hard for me to pick just one college moment as the BEST. I loved college. A lot of my best friends are college friends. I met the soon-to-be HusbandTuesday in college. I chose my profession in college. I forged lasting relationships with professors. And I developed a stronger, more confident sense of self. I guess I’m one of those girls who looks back on college as the time I “found myself.”

But I also discovered Steak and Shake and Donatos Hawaiian Pizza. These were two of my best discoveries. Each for different reasons.

Mmmm, Steak and Shake. Oh how I miss the triple thick oreo chocolate chip milkshakes, with the tiny chocolate chips that get would get stuck in the straw, and the chocolate wafer cookie resting ever so gently on the whipped cream. My first visit to Steak and Shake was at 2 am in the morning in the Spring of my Freshman year of college. Before the soon-to-be HusbandTuesday and I started dating, we spent that spring forging the bonds of an unbending friendship. Determined to listen to a recording of Sarah McLachlan that he had left in his car, the two of us set out for a late night road trip out of the cornfields we called campus and towards the closest city. Having grown up there, he spent the next two hours showing me how beautiful the skyline looked by moonlight out the window of his tiny little sports-car. We capped off the night with a visit to the Steak and Shake drive through. I can’t remember if it was my first time there; somehow I don’t think it was. But it was certainly the most memorable. Driving home in silence, having exhausted our music selections, I felt the most indescribable combination of happiness and calm. And deliciousness.

While milkshakes may trigger an emotional reaction, Donatos Pizza simply makes my mouth water. There weren’t many fine dining options near campus, and the first time I had Donatos’ thin crust pizza, I was actually unimpressed. But then I learned about the Hawaiian pizza. A delicious thin crust pizza packed to the edge with thinly sliced ham, pinnapple, cinnamon, sliced almonds, and fresh mozzarella cheese. It is the most addictive and delicious pizza I have and will likely ever taste. Sure, it isn’t served with Papa John’s artery sauce, and it isn’t the most traditional pizza. But I can eat it for every meal, and snack on it in between. I’ve brought it cold on airplanes home from school, and I make every effort to stop and get one when we’re back visiting his family. I can’t remember the precise moment I tasted my first slice, but it was certainly the most delicious discovery of my collegiate career. The two of us shared many Friday night dates sipping rootbeer, laughing at the local color, and splitting an entire pizza. My waistline probably appreciates the fact that the franchise doesn’t extend this far East, but my stomach is actually growling at me right now, angry at me for going into such detail and longing for just one warm slice.

Section 306, Row 2, Seats 1 and 2

Spending time with my dad this weekend had me thinking back to how we became such crazy sports nuts. I don’t know if I can pinpoint the exact time when the love of all things spectator-sport related began (probably when the doctor said “it’s a girl” to which he says he responded “are you sure?” and has since proceeded to treat me like the son he never had…) but I can definitely pinpoint the time when we got crazy about it. It was, sadly, one of my most defining college moments. Or at least one of the ones I can actually point to as having had a tangible, noticeable influence on who I am today.

DaddyMonday’s been going to the Final Four since, well, forever. He’s got this buddy, I call him Mr. Final Four, he goes with, and they’ve got pictures with Larry Bird at one of the FFs in Indianapolis, some story about the FF in Charlotte where they took this other friend and he refused to pay scalpers’ prices for tickets so they watch the whole thing on a TV in the back of a limo (needless to say that guy never went again….), and lots of stories about trying to buy or sell tickets in the rain in New Orleans. It seems it always rains in New Orleans.

When I was a senior in college I was invited to go along. We’d been basketball fans since I was little. We always had Tennessee basketball season tickets as far back as I can remember (and had them up until 2003 when MommaMonday moved away - she was the cash behind the whole thing). We sat in the upper deck, Section 306, Row 2, Seats 1 and 2. I remember the first time I ever went down to the lower section (to see Daddy’s friend, Mr. Final Four who sits really, really close). The players were so big. And more easily defined than just by the tops of their heads. It was amazing. But I went willingly back to 306, no worse for the wear.

Now back to the 2001 Final Four. I was a senior in college and the FF was in Minneapolis (cold and exotic to me back then). We got tickets the old fashioned way, through the lottery. Every year in June they mail out lottery slips to anyone interested. You send them your check for roughly $100 a ticket and pray that you’re picked. Now the best tickets are held by the NCAA for distribution to the schools who make the four, so the lottery tickets given out almost a year in advance are the really, really crappy seats. And by crappy I mean limited view. They hold these things in football stadiums, put the court down on one end (think roughly the 30 yard line to the end zone) and then basically fill the place up with seats. Our tickets would be around the other 30 yard line (it’s like watching 10 guys juggle from 100 yards away and 80 feet up). Yikes. But I didn’t care, I was going to the Final Four.

So here we were, the first night, games 1 and 2. We find our seats, check out the view, then decide to roam around the lower level since it’s early enough that we can do that without much problem. We both stopped around half court and moved down into the seats so I could get some pictures and then sat down in the last row to enjoy the moment before heading back out to Wisconsin. Only problem was….we kept sitting there. And sitting there…And then there was only a half hour before the game started. So we decided to see how long we could go. We saw Dickie V, Bob and Libby Dole, Morgan Freeman, Grant Hill, a bunch of coaches, all come and go past our seats.

And then it happened…………The game started. So dad said “they must only be interested in the second game, they’ll surely come then.” At this point the place was packed….probably 50,000 fans and the only two empty seats had to be up in section Nowhere, Row a Million. Where we were *supposed* to be. Not here at half court, row 35, right under the press boxes.

But they didn’t come for the second game, so we enjoyed ourselves, but you’d better believe neither one of us was about to get up for a coke or a pee. No way were we leaving and chancing not getting it back.

The final game was different. We both thought, “there’s no way,” but we tried it anyway. It was a lot harder to get in this time, they were checking tickets. We had to sneak in four or five sections over and crawl across entire rows. And when we got to the seats there was some guy sitting there. So I said, looking at my ticket for section Nowhere, Row a Million, but never turning it around or putting it down, (and I’ll never know where this came from who what person I transformed into)”excuse me, I think you’re in our seats.”

And he got up and left. And the game started. And we watched the whole game, unspoiled in Row 35, half-court. It was amazing. I’ve never had an experience like that where I just got lucky, and got to see what it was like to live like the rich Iron Dukes who sat next to us. It’s one of those defining experiences, only not the ones like most people have. For me it was about seeing how the other half lives, but not in such a way that I would want to live that exact life, in such a way that I thought, “hey, I’m sitting here and I didn’t have to give a million dollars to some school, I just took an empty seat.”

And that is how I became addicted to not ever playing by the rules when it comes to sporting events. I will never sit in my seat. I can be asked to move 40 times by rightful ticket owners, but it’s always worth paying $10 and trying to get a $300 view. Pick me up, scoot me over, move me around, but I will never go back to only seeing the tops of heads again.

So thank you random Red Sox fans who didn’t show up and allowed me to sit behind home plate for Red Sox/Yankees. Thank you to GirlTuesday for giving me her ID so I could get two student tickets to the 2005 Final Four and DaddyMonday and I could sit on row 3 behind the basket. And thank you to DaddyMonday who always says “doesn’t look like those people are going to show up, wanna move down?”

Now just wish me luck this weekend, I’m going to a Vols game and our tickets are in Section 329, Row 23, Seat 6 and Section 328, Row 24, Seat 11. Yep, we’re not even sitting together. But you just watch. I bet I can figure out how to get us into the luxury boxes.