Before You Leave the House

So somewhere in between Boredom and Ennui, I’ve discovered that the Internet, when it is your last friend and only connection to the Things of This World for hours on end, really has nothing to offer except an expedited route to carpel tunnel in your right hand and questions such as “Did Gwyneth really just have the balls to complain TO THE WORLD about her holiday weight gain?” Which she did, and which actually shouldn’t surprise me at all coming from a woman who named her firstborn Apple and her Web site Goop—the latter of which basically ensures that I will never visit her site again because “Goop” does nothing but remind me of things that happen in the toilet on a really bad day. Yeah, work is slow; I am about to lose my mind; and this is all I have to write about.

Oh, except that Jason and I did attend the Carolina versus College of Charleston game last night courtesy of some free tickets from a friend who, like any other sane person in the world, thought that 9 p.m. was a ridiculous time to schedule or attend a sporting event. I must admit that we (or as Jason would really like to point out—his wife) couldn’t make it through the last 10 minutes. I also wish I had brought my glasses because the contacts were starting to fog up and I was having to squint a bit to get a clear look at Danny Green’s arms—gosh, what a crush I have on that man from the neck down and oh how he can glide through the air… But I’m rather glad that I didn’t bring the glasses because then I really would have been the Old Woman in Attendance due to the donning of the only UNC shirt she didn’t know she had in the house but that her spouse pulled out of a drawer 5 minutes before departure. I thought my nonpartisan hoodie would be fairly cute to wear to the game, but heavens no! Wear the damn blue shirt that says “Carolina” across the chest and is so big it covers your ENTIRE ass and makes all the college girls cringe at ever one day being 30. Note to spouse: it might have been better for my self-esteem had I gone without pants, then the Cute Young Things would have seen my bike-riding leg muscles and thought “Damn, 30 cannot get here sooner.” Additional note to spouse: I’m cutting the bottom of that shirt off before I ever wear it again. And final note to spouse: look at your wife’s ass before you leave the house with her. Make sure you can still tell that she has one, and yes, I’ll try to remember to check out your crotch to make sure your zipper is up. I know, I’ve let that one slip a couple of times recently. Apologies.

Anyway, so with 14:36 on the clock in the second half, we made a pact that we would leave when whichever of the following milestones occurred first: Carolina reaches 80 points or we hit the 10-minute mark. The two happened concurrently.

But even though we left a bit early, and even though the Tarheels blew the Cougars away, and even though we sat on row T in the upper level in a pair of seats that literally straddled the crack of the Dean Dome where two sides of the stadium met, we had a great time. The best moment came when Psycho T bent down to recover the ball and a Cougar player jumped up and forward to attempt some defense and ended up landing where Women the World Over have always yearned to be: on top of Tyler Hansbrough. When Tyler, obviously still focused on the ball, stood up, the other player was lifted up with him, stuck in a perch on his shoulder. The poor fellow stayed there for a few precarious seconds because I don’t think either dude quite knew what had happened or what to do when a player literally gets attached to another player. Needless to say, the stadium erupted in laughter, and it was the funniest thing I’ve seen since the dawn of the new year.