Hello, Andrea’s blog readers, this is Andrew. Every year my
buddy Michael and I go to a Charlotte Bobcats game and it is one of the most
enjoyable evenings of the year for me. We’ve also gone to a couple of Carolina
Panthers games, and every time we do things like this, crazy stuff invariably
ensues. (Don’t believe me? Read
this post from my old blog of when Michael and I went to the
Panthers-Cardinals playoff game). We went on Friday and once again, crazy
stuff happened and I felt the compulsive urge to do a 2,500-word blog post about
it.
The Drive to Charlotte
Michael and I have a lot in common. We both grew up in the
church, served missions, and met our respective wives at BYU. We both have
MBA’s and work for Fortune 500 companies. We both have three kids consisting of
two daughters and a son. Both of our wives competed professionally on the
World’s Strongest Man circuit from 2003-2006. Michael was Ward Mission Leader
for several years in our ward since I have been Bishop and he now serves on the
High Council. And, finally, we are quite possibly the two biggest fantasy
sports dorks in the universe.
So, naturally, our conversation for the hour-and-a-half
drive to Charlotte consisted of work, church, family, and mostly fantasy
basketball. Our level of detail and dorkiness about fantasy hoops knew no
bounds. Our conversations about the value of fringe NBA players like Ekpe Udoh,
Bismack Biyombo, Ersan Ilyasova, and Rodrigue Beaubois flowed from our lips as
through we were Einstein and Stephen Hawking pondering the complexity of the
universe, or Bill Clinton and Chris Christie debating the genius of the new
Taco Bell Doritos Taco Loco (
the taco shell is made of Doritos!!!)
Let’s just say that if Michael and I had picked up a
hitchhiker in Greensboro who turned out to be an unmarried atheist who hates
the NBA, our non-stop conversation would have forced our passenger to light himself
on fire and fling himself from the car by the time we reached Archdale.
Dinner in the Twilight Zone
We got to Charlotte at 6:00 p.m., plenty of time to get a
quick bite to eat prior to the 7:00 tipoff. My new GPS and I are still leery
of one another and have a rocky relationship, but I pulled up the list of
nearby restaurants on my GPS and it said there was a Subway 0.4 miles away. My
route updated to take us to Subway and I had to make a quick decision at an
intersection – and, being me, chose the wrong street.
My error put us back on a
highway. My GPS adjusted itself in light of my mistake and told me to
exit right, but I think my GPS is always lying to me so I willfully disobeyed
and exited left. And, being me, this smooth move put us back on the freeway going the wrong
direction.
We finally got turned around and my GPS led us back to
Subway. Or it was supposed to, anyway. The GPS’s feelings must have been hurt
and it was in a vindictive mood because when it said, “Arriving at Subway, on
left,” we only saw laundormats, tattoo parlors, and H&R Block and such. Then,
my petulant GPS said, “Hah hah, arrogant suckers! You’re on your own, jerks!
You mess with the bull, you get the horns!” I was a little suspicious when the
file name for my last Garmin software update was listed as “GPS-Update-Garmin-02182012-JerkMode”,
but whatever.
Since the Subway did not really exist, I pulled up the GPS
for other nearby restaurants and we found a Quiznos just around the
corner in downtown Charlotte. We found parking on the street just around the corner from where
Quizons should be and the parking was metered, but rather than feeding your
individual meter, you have to pay at a centralized, high-tech pay station. The
process was about as user-friendly as NASA’s pre-flight launch process for the
Space Shuttle.
I inserted my two quarters and the LCD meter display flashed
up, “You do not have to pay for parking after 6:00 on Friday.” Cool, I thought,
and pushed the coin return button. Only it refused to return my coins. I stood
there befuddled for a moment and pushed the button again, only my coins never
came, so we left. I think if I would have stood there long enough a follow-up
message would have flashed up which read, “Ah, you foolish dopes known as ‘tax payers’, you are such chumps. Sincerely,
the Gubmint.”
Since this is downtown Charlotte, restaurants like Quizons
are on the ground level of larger buildings, so we never truly got a visual of
the Quiznos restaurant itself, but we rounded the corner to where my GPS said the Quiznos would be, saw a sandwich shop, and opened the door.
As we entered Quiznos, time suddenly stood still for about
fifteen seconds. Our surroundings seemed to be a little off. The time-space
continuum shifted for a moment. After getting our bearings we looked at each other and said, “This isn’t
Quiznos. This is Subway!” In that moment it was like we had entered the movie Inception
and we would not have been surprised to see a runaway freight train barreling down Trade Street.
From my car I heard my GPS laugh and say, “Ah, you
foolish men are such chumps. Sincerely, Garmin Jerk Mode.”
So, just to recap, our first Subway didn’t even exist so we
went to Quiznos, which was actually a Subway that did not exist. Michael and I then eerily
ordered the exact same sandwich – footlong Steak and Cheese, toasted, mayo and
extra Twilight Zone sauce. Instead of chips we each ordered a side of cursed
monkey paws. We then sat down and scarfed our dinner as the space-time
continuum unraveled around us.
I thought as we left the restaurant the woman
who made our sandwiches was going to say something like, “When you tell people
about your dinner, tell ‘em Large Marge served ya,” then cackle and disappear
into the ether. This may or may not have happened. I was too scared to look.
The “Professional” “Basketball” “Game”
We entered Time Warner We-Gouge-Our-Customers Cable Arena
still reeling from having dinner in the Twilight Zone. But the Twilight Zone
was not done with us. As we entered the arena we were informed that tonight we were not watching the
Charlotte Bobcats versus the New Jersey Nets. The Twilight Zone informed us
that tonight was throwback night and we were watching the Carolina Cougars
versus the New York Nets. The Bobcats players wore uniforms that said
“Cougars.” New Jersey wore unis that said “New York.”
The PA announcer called
the Bobcats the Cougars all night long. The cheerleaders started the “Let’s go Cougars” chants. Michael and I suddenly felt like The Twilight Zone had transported us back to the late nineties and we were cheering at a BYU Cougars basketball game. The whole thing was confusing.
Normally when you go to a professional sporting event you
are packed shoulder-to-shoulder with twenty thousand drunk, profane, volatile
people, kind of like flying US Air from Philly to Boston.
But when the 5-32 Charlotte Bobcats (worst in the NBA) tip
off against the 13-27 New Jersey Nets, the feeling
in the arena is more like that of Will Smith living in downtown NY in I Am Legend – there
should be a lot of people here, but there just aren’t. (And, sadly, just like
Will Smith, Michael and I had to shoot and kill the albino fans who sat in the dark
recesses of the arena before they emerged in the fourth quarter to eat us. The
investigation is still pending, and on advice from my lawyer I will now stop
typing.)
At tipoff, most NBA arenas are electric. The crowd is
buzzing and you get goose bumps. But for a Charlotte (Carolina?) versus New
Jersey (New York?) game, this is what you get at the tip:
Shortly into the game Michael notices Michael Jordan, majority
owner of the Bobcats (Cougars?) sitting at the end of the bench. I zoomed in
with my camera to get a few MJ picks just as he started to taunt somebody on the court with
a “choke” sign. And MJ was not messing around. He was serious. It was another
odd, Twilight Zone moment watching MJ do that from the bench. He looked like he might punch
somebody, and it might have been one of his own players.
And in that MJ-doing-the-choke
moment I just happened to snap my all-time favorite picture:
We ended up watching MJ as much as the terrible basketball
we saw on the floor. We saw him totally blow off the water bottle guy:
Pretend like he cared about his team by reading fake stat
sheets (I think it was really a list of ways to spend a billion dollars):
And, finally, coming to the sad realization that he is an
owner of the most pathetic NBA franchise in existence:
The “Game”
The only player Michael and I were excited to watch was the
Nets Deron Williams. He is one of the best players in the NBA and he is the
best player on my fantasy team this year. So what happens with D-Will? He gets
injured in the second quarter, leaves, and never comes back.
Watching a
Bobcats-Nets game without Deron Williams is like watching Cast Away without Tom
Hanks - you can try to convince yourself that Wison is a pretty good actor, but
in your heart you know he is just a stupid volleyball.
After D-Will went down, Michael and I watched ten
“volleyballs” play for the rest of the game. It was easily the most
disorganized, sloppy, pathetic, poorly-played professional basketball games we
have ever witnessed. It got to be so bad that we just sat there making fun of
what we were watching, a la Mystery Science Theater 3000. Guys were throwing up
17-foot bricks, airballing reverse layups, dribbling the ball off their legs
with no defender near, getting called for eight-seconds in the backcourt. I coached our ward's Young Women's basketball team a few weeks ago and their offense flowed better than the Bobcats did.
The score at halftime was a rip-roaring, barn-burning 39-35.
Then, at halftime, the Bobcats brought out their aerial
dunking team, which literally caused the biggest applause from the crowd of the entire evening. But the terrible basketball extended to the
halftime show as the Bobcats mascot, Rufus Lynx, started things with a
horrendous rim check.
In the third quarter Michael and I assessed who the five best
players in the arena were. Here is what we concluded, in order:
1. Michael Jordan (owner, Charlotte Bobcats and hilarious
bench-taunter.)
2. Kris Humphries (Kim Kardashian’s ex-husband, reality
TV star, PF New Jersey Nets)
3. Tie – Michael and Me
4. Edwardo Najera (All-hustle NBA journeyman)
5. The sassy, excitable grandma sitting right behind us.
As Michael and I LOL’d at the terrible play we were watching
from Section 229 in the nosebleeds a timeout was called. The Bobcats
cheerleaders brought out the T-shirt bazooka, pointed it right at us, and
fired. Again, the space-time continuum began to unravel. The Twilight Zone took
hold.
The t-shirt missile was coming right at my chest at about
eighty miles per hour!
Michael and I both went for t-shirt and it ended up in my
arms like a tip-drill interception in football. I caught it without it hitting
the ground! Sure, the odds of catching a t-shirt at a sparsely attended Bobcats
game is about 1-in-6, but it is still cool to get shot at by a cannon at a
sporting event.
The Bobcats ended up losing and the game. Staying for an entire Bobcats-Nets game is like finishing the Book Old Yeller - it breaks your heart and makes you want to cry.
The Ride Home
Our tradition on the ride home is to stop at a gas station
and get some snacks, so I took us to a Raceway gas station just outside of
Charlotte. I also really needed to use the bathroom. We could tell immediately
we were in the wrong part of town when we read the hand drawn sign on the
outside of the Raceway door which read, “No entering store with hoodies covering your
face.” That either means most of their customers are armed robbers, very ugly,
or both. In fact, I think
we saw Nick Nolte there.
We cautiously entered the store wishing we were carrying
switchblades, only to find out they had no bathroom. We went back to the car
and were relieved to find that my 2002 Honda Accord had not already been stripped down for parts.
We drove down the road to a Circle K searching again for
snacks and a bathroom. As we pulled in we noticed the store attendant jiggling
with the lock to the front doors, but he let us come in. I walked back to the
bathroom and found a hand-written sign on the door – “BATHROOM, OUT OF ORDER,
PLEASE!”
I walked to the front of the store and told Michael about
the bathroom. The clerk overheard me and said, “Nah, go ahead and use it.
Bathroom’s fine.” I started to ask a follow-up question with a, “But, are your sure….” then I
just shut myself up, credited all of this to our Twilight Zone evening, and
used the bathroom that could not be used.
We finally paid for our drinks and snacks and were getting
ready to leave. But the store clerk beat us to the door and for some
inexplicable reason started jiggling with the lock again and ended up locking the door, and the lock got stuck.. We stood at the now
locked doors as the clerk fiddled unsuccessfully with the now jammed locks. The clerk was getting flustered, looked
up, and said, “The doors are locked and won’t come unlocked. I'm sorry.”
Great, we are now locked INSIDE a gas station in the worst
part of Charlotte. I started scanning the store for customers wearing hoodies and once again wished I was
concealing a switchblade.
The Twilight Zone snickered at our plight. My GPS mocked us
from the car. And the clerk worked for a full minute or two before finally
unlocking the doors and letting us leave.
The Twilight Zone must begin/end in Charlotte, because the
rest of the trip back to Greensboro was rather uneventful. Just more discussions
about nerdy Mormon and fantasy basketball stuff.
I can’t want to do this again next year with Michael. It is
always one of the highlights of my year. But next year I’ll be packing a
switchblade.
Exploring at the creek behind our house. 
Caroline loves joining big brother on adventures. 
She is happy to play in the mud. 
Brandon always seems to end up IN the water.
Riding bikes at Big Hill. 
Also spent lots of time exploring. 
Jump! 
B was once again irresistably drawn to the water.
