Wrong Bowl.

Hi reader(s). You ever have like a huge funny story from your past, that you just flat out forgot about, only to be reminded again recently, and you’re just flat stunned that you could ever forget that story? What? You make no sense. Um, you know what I mean. You get reminded somehow of probably one of the funniest stories you’ve ever heard, and you immediately think, “oh my God I’m going to put that on my blog!”, “how could I have not written this story down before??”. Just tell the damn story.

Luckily for me, I can actually tell you what day it was. It was Sunday, February 1, 2004. How do I know this? Super Bowl party. Patriots over Panthers. You know, the Super Bowl with the Janet Jackson boob incident. Ha! I knew you’d end up talking about bewbies! Shut up. I have a different story about that night.

Background: so, in my group of friends, we had one friend that, let’s just say, didn’t have a lot of game. Didn’t have a lot of luck with the ladies. (see former post, he’s the anti-Player to my other friend, the Player). Give him some credit. Ok, he has since turned it around and met and married a girl and he turned out ok. But, but, but, in 2004, he hadn’t turned it around yet, and was, ……….the anti-Player. Both by his own doing, too picky, nervous with the ladies, whatever – and, just some flat out bad luck.

Character Set-Up: so, he who shall be known as the anti-Player, had met a little lady the past fall of 2003 and hung out with her some. I’m not making fun here, either for or against him, but I don’t know what it meant back then for him to “hang out” with a girl. He always said any girls he liked just always hung out and classified him in the “friend zone”. Although in 2004, in our mid-twenties, I’m pretty sure I know what he meant when he said he had a friend, who was a girl, that he was “hanging out” with last fall. Unfortunately, in a continuance of his bad luck, this little lady was in the Air Force and was only in our area for the fall, for a class. When her class was over, she was returned by the Air Force to her base in,………….Arizona. We live in Virginia. Poor anti-Player, yet again.

Current Relevance: so, that night, Super Bowl night, we were all (~15-20 people) at another one of our friend’s house for the game. Everyone brought food or beer, there was a good big screen TV – we chose this guy’s house for big football games sometimes because he literally had stadium seating. i.e. he built a stand for additional couches to be behind the first section of couches. Enginerds are good for some things, see?

So, we’re at the party for the game. When the anti-Player gets a cell phone call in the middle of the third quarter. It’s his lady friend. The one from Arizona. They’re talking briefly. He’s excited to hear that she’s going to be in town soon. His mood is good.

Now It Gets Hairy: After hanging up with her, he’s telling some of us that he’s excited he’ll get to see again soon. Blah blah blah. We think nothing of it, at least, at the time, we’re watching the Super Bowl after all. Then his phone rings again. This is what we hear. “Ohhhhhhh, you’re here now?!?!? This Sunday??!?!??! And you’re leaving tomorrow morning??!??!?! Shit! Be right there!!!!”

You know that puff of smoke you see when the road runner disappears and then you see the hole through the wall where the coyote exited. Yeah. The anti-Player was gone before anyone could even get out, “later” or “bye”.

The remainder of this story is as recanted to us by the anti-Player, the next day. Many of the aspects of the story, are additionally humorous because they’re true, it’s literally how hard up he was.

Apparently he misunderstood her travel plans, and she was literally only in town for a day for the Air Force, and was leaving the next day. She had gone out with her coworkers to watch the game, but was now back at her hotel, a little inebriated. Girls make booty calls too!!!! He received her call and invite while at the party with us.

He proceeded to make the ~7 mile trip from the Super Bowl party to his house in roughly 3 minutes (with lights and traffic should have taken 15). He said he ran 2 red lights and hit over 100 on the main road. Hey, the anti-Player was in need, people.

He shit, showered, and shaved – and threw on some nice clothes at his house. He claims he did this in less than 2 minutes.

He then said he floored it back out of his neighborhood and hit 7-11. The way he describes the 7-11 experience is like a movie when everyone starts rooting for the protagonist of the story. He said he sprinted in, literally, ran to the beer cooler, grabbed a sixer of Heineken. Turned, sprinted to the drug store aisle, grabbed a box of condoms (here’s where I might have to question his story on his recant a little bit, he said he grabbed MAGNUM’s, but alas, it’s his story). Hits the candy aisle and grabs some mints and sprints for the counter. Crap, three people in line. Apparently, including the clerk, the four of them watched in humorous amazement as he entered the parking lot at full speed, screeched to a stop in the handicapped spot, sprinted in at full speed, grabbed beer, condoms, and mints – and headed for the counter. The three other customers at this point backed away from the counter and let him go first. The clerk, laughing hysterically, rang it up and bagged it ASAP for him.

He swears he heard, “go get ‘em tiger”, from an old dude in line. Total was around $14. He threw a $20 on the counter and sprinted out, no change needed.

Now he’s roughly a couple miles from Arizona-girl’s hotel. And two or three stoplights. He continues to floor it and take turns all too aggressively. And says he probably ran the lights leaving the 7-11 area. Now he says, he gets to the last light, to turn into the hotel. He’s sitting in the left hand turn lane, with a red arrow. He doesn’t run this one, because he’s run enough of them, so he’ll wait this one out, and use the time to catch his breath and prepare to see her (check teeth, have one of those mints, etc.) – oh and he doesn’t run this light because it’s going left across his city’s probably biggest road, 4 lanes of traffic.

So he sits, and waits. And waits. And waits. Moves his car up and back a couple times to ensure he would trigger the turn lane sensor. No luck. He says it was for a couple minutes, and a couple cycles of the light to the other direction, and no green turn arrow. He freaks. Next break in traffic, he floors it, screeching in place before taking off and cutting the wheel at max to the left to try and cut through the traffic.

About halfway across the intersection he hears a loud crash and then some grinding. He realizes he’s sitting at an angle and looking down and right. What the hell is with the front right tire? Oh, there it goes. As he watches it roll off down the road and into the ditch…..apparently all this heavy driving and screeching and hard turns sort of ripped the tire off the rim. He said he tried to drive on the rim for a second. Screw it. He’ll fix it tomorrow, if the rim could just get him to the hotel!!! He was right there! he was at the hotel…..Thankfully he talked himself out of that.
Then he said he thought about just leaving the car there. Leave it in the middle of the biggest road in town, in an intersection, on 3 tires, on Super Bowl Sunday – and he’ll get it later, he could just run to the hotel and leave it…… Thankfully he talked himself out of that.

Next best thing? He knows he’s going to have to change the tire out and get the spare on. But dammit. He’s wearing sweet ass dress clothes for his lady. Can’t get those all greasy or sweaty. So…….yep……got naked.

[side note: I have to interrupt here to let you know, in the most non-gay way, that we always teased the anti-Player because he couldn’t get girls because he was a nervous dork around them, it wasn’t his looks or his body. And he also works out 11 days a week and is pretty jacked.]

His night couldn’t get worse. Except, yep, you guessed it. Sirens and lights. Blue lights. State trooper pulls up, blocks traffic, sets up some flares and walks over to the anti-Player. Now, in your best Hollywood imagination, picture this:
*4 lane road, busiest in town.
*SUV, hatch open to get the spare out. Sitting on 3 tires and 1 rim. In the middle of the intersection.
*Young man, muscular in great shape, wearing only dress shoes and socks, boxers, and a tank-top undershirt – trying to get the SUV lifted on the jack.
*Passenger door open where he threw his clothes in, and got the jack and wrench out.
*In view on the front seat: 6 pack of Heineken, box of condoms, box of mints.
*Young man, frantically changing the tire like he works on a NASCAR pit crew.

My friend, the anti-Player, said the state trooper didn’t say a word or help. Just watched in amazement and laughing the whole time at the situation. When he finished, picking up everything, he said the state trooper walked over to the car, grabbed one of the Heinekens, got back in his squad car with a “good luck kid” and drove away. Other than the “good luck kid”, not a word was exchanged.

So he pulls over to the hotel, gets his dress clothes back on, eats another mint, and sprints into the lobby. Up the elevator to her room. Pauses a second in the hall to catch his breath, make sure his clothes look decent. Condoms in the back pocket. A 5-pack of Heineken to share in hand.

Knock, knock, knock.
No answer.
Knock, knock, knock.
No answer.
Knock, knock, knock.
Finally, an answer. It’s his girl. He thinks. It looks like her. Only a death came over, rolled over, and tossed her at the door in her pajamas.

Alas was anti-Player’s life and luck, he got the booty call from a drunken happy version of his girl. Then after the work at home, 7-11, and changing a tire – he got to spend the rest of Super Sunday holding her hair at the Hampton Inn’s super “bowl”.