The Night that was Almost Perfect

We’ll take a break from life on campus in this entry. I’d like to share a story while it’s still fresh in my mind, and I’d say now would be the best time for that, since it happened last night.

Ever since the NBA season started, my friends and I have been saying how awesome it would be to see the Celtics in person. My friend Charlie and I grew up following them, and our friends Tom and Dan share a general love for sports in general. This past Monday, inspiration struck, and we decided that this would be the week to make it happen. I found tickets for the Wednesday game against the Miami Heat, so we gave the train schedule a quick glance and it appeared to fit our plans. By our calculations, we would take a 5:30 train out of Worcester, get into Boston, grab the T to the Garden, and be at the game 20 minutes before tip off.

When everything went according to plan, the four of us were feeling pretty good. We found our seats, which weren’t exactly courtside but got the job done, and settled in for a thrilling game. It was the ideal game to attend – competitive, dramatic, and the Celtics won. We just barely missed a free t-shirt that was launched out of perhaps the most powerful t-shirt cannon I’ve ever witnessed. We laughed and cheered at the people dancing (or, trying to dance) on the Jumbotron. We had pretzels, pizza, and hot dogs. We flooded the streets with thousands of other satisfied fans after the game. We shared a cheery subway ride back to the train station.

We missed our train.

Wait, what? But…but everything was going perfectly! How could this happen?

A talented critical reader will already have an idea how it happened. Now, to do something I’ve never done before, I will quote myself. In fact, I’ll quote this very entry:

“…we gave the train schedule a quick glance and it appeared to fit our plans.”

Well, looks can be deceiving. A quick glance was not sufficient: the train did not fit our plans. Not at all. Not even close. It was midnight, and the last train for Worcester departed sometime around 10:20 (or, in basketball time, right around the beginning of the fourth quarter). How we made this mistake is currently under investigation (I plead the fifth). Regardless, it was a capital one. Suddenly, my Celtics jersey began to look like a pillow. The bench at the station began to look like a bed. The 4 a.m. train to Worcester began to look like our only option.

Then, our savior arrived in the form of Charlie’s dad. Luckily, he lived within a half-hour of the station and happened to be awake when Charlie called at 12:30. We had a house to stay at, beds to sleep in, and a ride back to campus in the morning. How we got so lucky, I do not know.

We got back at 10 a.m. with an hour to spare before class.

So, to recap, we had a great Wednesday night. Getting a change of scenery was refreshing, the game was invigorating, and fun was had along the way. Was it perfect? Not quite. But as far as I’m concerned, close enough.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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