A Night in the Hat (Part 2)

(This is a continuation of my earlier post entitled "A Night in the Hat", if you have not read that post yet, it would be highly helpful to your understanding if you did that first. I know, scrolling down sucks.....I've been there, I feel your pain.)

While the JV's were learning their life lesson, the seniors expended all possible options for amusement, which included exploring the identical hallways, and getting a huge bucket of ice from the ice machine. When we filled said bucket, it was then that we realized we had no real use for this ice, it just sounded like a good idea at the time. The next 15 min were filled with grunts of surprise as no one escaped a certain cold wet feeling down the back of their shirt.

Finally, the hallway littered with ice cubes, we turned our collective attention to food. Cletus was buzzing around my laptop like a fly, with the appearance of someone in deep thought. That got me wondering what was putting him in this state of intense focus....was it our new offensive play, was it his free throw technique? When I asked him what he was pondering, he asked me if we could visit Pizza Hut's website, so he could begin to plan the largest order of our lives.

It all seemed like a blur after that. Soon I had about 8 guys crowded around my computer screen, taking in the deliciousness of the internet images in front of them. Hunger was gnawing at everybody. Cletus, with the authority of someone responsible for the fate of the universe, picked up the phone, dialed the number, and began to order. I don't know what it was, maybe everyone assumed the food available was just as small as the pixels on my screen, but everyone just kept on ordering....and ordering....and ordering. All those years of my parents telling me I was a bottomless pit increased my confidence. We needed more! Pizzas? Pzones? Wings? Brownies? Cinnamon Buns? Root Beer? Bring it on! I looked over at Alec, spewing out suggestions like a high school guidance counselor. I watched the glee in his face increase every time Cletus added something to the order. Everyone was smiling. I knew this euphoria wouldn't last.

Sure enough, about 5 seconds before Cletus hung up the phone, he suddenly changed. He became grim and serious. He told everyone to get out their money, to put in everything they got...because we just spent $273 on one meal. Only Alec kept his grin, for the rest of us, it was a mad dash for wallets, pockets, gym bags, and ATM's. There was mumbling along the lines of "I should have gone to @!&$@ McDonald's!". People were calling in previous debts and exchanging money on a massive scale. The pizza hut manager called, asking if this order was a joke. We assured him it wasn't. We may be going broke, but something in all of us wanted to see this through to the end.

The delivery people arrived. I felt a sudden shot of sympathy for them. I only got a quick glance, but I could have sworn they borrowed a luggage rack from the hotel to accomplish their task. When it was all said and done, we laid out enough boxes to completely cover the table next to the TV, AND one of the beds.

Those on our team who didn't participate in "The Order" (referred to from here on as "The Outsiders") caught the whiff of pizza and congregated around the doorway, hoping against hope that we were so far in over our heads that we could spare them a piece. For the first 45 minutes, this was the situation:

(The birds did not pay for that crumb, and that was an expensive crumb.)

Eventually, it was all over. We had to let the Outsiders in on the pizza bonanza. I could pinpoint the exact minute this happened. When Cletus took one look at the chicken wings and said he wanted to puke, we knew we could not eat another morsel of food. ANY OF US. As a side note, Cletus was quoted a couple of weeks before this tournament saying "I'm going to go buy a bucket of chicken to make me feel better". It's official, we were done.

Who would we blame for this colossal waste of funds, cheese, and tomato sauce? Well, why blame ourselves, when there is a perfectly good pecking order with which to transmit the blame? Inevitably, the blame landed on Russell. Russell is a JV, and also a member of the Outsiders, and so was not involved in any way, shape, or form with the ordering of the pizza. But it was his fault. If you want to know why, take one look at this visual aid.

(Russell and Filatoff. No further explanation is necessary.)

There was one final stop over at the mall Saturday, and since everyone was still avoiding food like the plague. We spent our time buying flashy accessories. Well, except Cletus, who was obviously so devastated from not being able to eat chicken wings that he had to sleep it off (In the middle of Sears, on a Sears-o-Pedic mattress.)

(He still swears he had no idea where that ducky came from)

A Night in the Hat

Due to popular demand (or perhaps the lack of anyone opposed to this) I will tell a sweeping tale of the (mis)adventures of one dysfunctional basketball team forced to spend a night in the far away land known as Medicine Hat.

My tale begins with everyone in a state of anticipation. Unlike our previous hotel stay in Taber earlier in the season, everyone was expecting to stay the night, instead of having it forced upon us by the not-so-graceful hand of mother nature. As such, everyone was laying out plans not to win at basketball, but to do something EPIC enough to stick this weekend in our memories for some time to come. Notice, when I said everyone, I was specifically referring to Alec. Why Alec, you say? Well, If you haven't guessed what he is like from my previous post, well then shame on you....But seriously, these visual aides should complete your mental picture of the guy....

(Alec in a nutshell)

It was safe to say Alec was quite excited. When we arrived at the oh-so-lucky hotel that would be hosting a team of 15 teenage guys, we discovered, much to our dismay, that coach Clayton had assigned us rooms, as opposed to us choosing them. Perhaps coach still remembered "The Taber Incident" (for the sake of my readers, I won't go there). It was a small setback, but everyone eventually worked around it. Sure, we had to sleep in groups, but we don't have to hang out in groups. I already counted my weekend lucky, because my room was spared the calamity of the whole team being in it at once.

We played a game Friday night, but for me to describe how we played would be an insult to this blog and everything it stands for. Instead, I will describe an unusual situation that occurred in that game, and continued into Saturday's games. We were so short on players, that I was required to be in the games regularly. I was to switch playing and sitting the bench with Tyler every 4 minutes. After I got over the initial shock of not having time to pick out the best looking female spectators, I realized it would actually be good for me to get the court experience. I think it was safe to say I was excited. Now, before I describe this situation, I would like to give my readers a little background on who Tyler is......this calls for another visual aid!

(Not actually Tyler, but still Tyler in a nutshell)

So after putting in my 4 minutes, I returned to the bench, to be replaced by Tyler. This was at 6 minutes remaining in the 1st quarter. Later, I am pulled out of basketball mode by Tyler, and at that point I figured I could take a look at the clock. I am shocked to see the clock at 2:30 remaining in the 1st quarter! I was jipped 30 seconds! My mind raced, but I labeled it an honest mistake and moved on. It took me another 3 shifts that were either too long, or too short for my brain to connect the dots. I am going to assume from this point forward that Tyler missed his kindergarten class on counting by 4's, because I'm nice like that.

I will stop rambling on about actual basketball at this point, because the actual fun began afterwords. We arrived at the hotel, milked the cable channels for all they were worth, (if anyone would like to know, that's about 30 minutes), and then everyone (not just Alec, but especially Alec) wanted something new and amusing with which to amuse ourselves. By the way, I know that my last sentence was horrible. I won't have a problem with people correcting my grammar, as long as they don't take it as far as this guy.......

Now I'm sure you won't believe me, but someone in our group found a group of girls to flirt with. It's almost like teenage boys have a radar for that kind of thing. Now the seniors, including I, had no trouble dipping ourselves into the conversation with these girls, but we became suddenly less enthusiastic when they revealed their ages to be considerably younger than ours (the whole process did seem a bit easy). However, this was good news for our JV's (Juniors), who were much more compatible in terms of age. It really was a shame that their girl detector radars hadn't quite evolved yet. Tyler, despite being unable to count by 4's, had a stroke of genius at this point. He suggested we tell our JV's that these girls wanted to see them with their shirts off. Of course, the JV's all believed him, and came waltzing into the lobby shirtless, hoping to create a magical spark of attraction. Little did they know that girls are slightly different from boys, and that day, they each learned an eternal truth of life, summarized by this visual aid.....

(Keep your eyes peeled faithful readers, Part 2 of A Night in the Hat is in the works and will be posted soon!)