Alone In A Crowd

Friday was an unusual evening for me. As a confirmed college basketball junkie, I am always interested in basketball this time of year. A Scoular friend was in Minneapolis Friday to meet with a group of lawyers (which did not include me it being Friday - one of my many days of rest). He had called his Wells Fargo contact in Omaha about the possibility of tickets and, amazingly, had rounded up two tickets in Wells Fargo's corporate suite for the Villanova/BC and Florida/Georgetown games - one of which I was offered. The plan was that I would meet Roger and my friend Joan at the Little Wagon, a "watering hole" near the Metrodome at about 4 p.m.

I arrived at The Wagon at 4 to find it filling up. But I nabbed the last table, saved a couple of seats for Joan and Roger and sat as the bar filled up. And up. And up. A hour and two beers later and still no Joan or Roger. It was a standing room only crowd, with me holding up three seats for friends who were actually listening to lawyers drone on about profit sharing plans. Finally Joan and Roger made their way through the crowd with time for a quick beer and then it was Roger and me making our way to the game.

I suppose in most circumstaces I'm as good at corporate small talk as the next guy. But at sports events in corporate suites I've always been the weird guy actually watching the game. Roger said he was the same way. So we resolved to be polite but not be embarrassed to actually watch the game. Roger was cheering for Nova. I was supporting BC.

Imagine our surprise when we arrived to find Suite 129B empty. By some weird circumstance we were the only two people in the suite. Very odd in a dome loaded with 26,00 basketball fans. The 'Nova / BC game was lots of fun. Ugly basketball, but very compelling nonetheless. Nova won on a last second goaltending call (which we could check on replay the two televisions in our suite). Roger had a 10:30 flight back to Omaha, so he took the train to the airport after the first game. So for the Florida / Georgetown game I was alone in the suite.

As I watched the second game alone with my scotch, with the teeming masses cheering outside, I felt a bit like the famous recluse Howard Hughes. Good thing my camera has a self-timer.