B365V2.166 - The case of the hockey ticket

Sitting at Mitchell's, I am looking for the chalk outline on the floor, because it was here last week that my crime of stupidity took place. And it all starts with that hockey ticket I mentioned in the last blog, or at least the last non hockey video or fantasy football blog.

When I least left you faithful readers, I had become stuck with an extra hockey ticket and about a week to find a hockey companion.  In truth I could have asked a few different people at work but I didn't want to appear to be playing favorites so I didn't.  I mean the tickets were $250 a piece, so if I give one to an employee I risk pissing off the others.  So I did not, instead I opted to go outside the confines of Smithfield News to find a partner in crime for the evening.  My first option was our new rep for Full Circle Distributing, Chelsey.  She has been our rep for about a month now and in at time she has done a better job than our previous two reps with them combined.   I thought I would make a nice offer to her, because as a manager I like to take care of the people that take care of us.  So I sent her a message on Facebook (I friend many of the people I do business with, it is like my LinkedIn with Candy Crush requests thrown in.   Anyway, so I sent her a message on there and for days I didn't hear from anything.  Of course you all know I was running up against a semi tight deadline, so I couldn't wait forever for a reply.       But then a funny thing happened, Kat stopped by the store on Friday.  An interesting story that one, I have always been attracted to her, but when she worked for us it would violate one of the Animal Planet Rules of Dating, that being you do not shit where you eat.  Relationships by and large turn out like shit, and your job allows you to eat, so don't mix the two.  Kat left us under less than ideal circumstances, she was busted for drinking on duty twice and I was the idiot after the first time for arguing for her to keep her job.  I was thinking the first time might be a come to Jesus moment, instead it was just a Matt is a dumbass moment, as it obviously happened a second time.  At which point I can't save people from themselves.

Well she stopped by the store on Friday, mind you it was in part because I had got her son a couple of small Christmas presents, because whatever issues she may have the issues of her baby daddy ( using the street vernacular) are far worse.  Being an authority on having a fuck up father, I can guarantee that his father's issues are worse than the issues of his mother.  Let just say the dad has a crowd funding page for people to get his drunk ass home from the bar.  Thank god no one was stupid enough to donate to it, but there are this kids parents ladies and gentlemen, one who can't put down the bottle long enough to complete a shift at work and one who looks online to support his habit of getting drunk.  Honestly the kid is fucked.  I hate to say that but I see it every day,  and God forbid, this is an instance where I can hopefully help if not make a difference, so I got the kid a little something for Halloween earlier this year.  Kat had picked it up from where I where I work (and where she used to work) and sent me a picture of her son and the basket/bucket I had put together for him.  It was cool of her to do so and the pic was also cool.  People on my Facebook can verify the coolness of it, those that aren't need to get with the program.  Anyway, I had got him a train set for Christmas, not one of those cool model set for collectors, but just a cheapie that runs around in a circle.  I figure worst case scenario they can set it up under their Christmas tree and he might get a kick out of it.  I also got a couple of small things for her, simply because having a small understanding of her situation (and admittedly my understanding is very small) I didn't want her to have nothing for Christmas.  I went through that last year, and while I understand why it happened (my moms health issues and what not) it still sucks.  So if I could keep someone else from going through it all the better.

Anyway Kat had stopped by to get the things I picked up for them, but then she realized she would have trouble navigating the trolley home while carrying it, so she asked me if she could pick everything up on Saturday, to which I said fine, it wasn't going anywhere.  I went back to work and she continued to go about her errands downtown.  I was just about finished with my paperwork in the office when someone lets me know that there is someone there to see me.  Here I am thinking I must be all kinds of Mr. Popularity, I come upstairs and it is Kat again.  So I ask what is up and she wants to take me out for a drink after work.  So we go to Mitchell's where we each grab a shot and I grab a beer.  All told I think she had two shots, I have more, but not so much hat I was drunk or anything, rather I was very much aware of my surroundings.  I would like to think we were both having a good time and then inspiration struck me, so I asked her if she would like to go to the hockey game on Monday.  She said yes, so my third attempt at getting someone to go to the game seemed to be off to a good start, which was good as I was running out of time.  We finished our drinks at the bar and Kat said she had 30 minutes to catch her trolley, so I walked with her over to the subway station, where we waited for her ride on the platform.  Once we got there however she suggested we take a walk down along the river.  I politely said no, because we would miss her trolley then.  Besides whatever errands she had to run downtown, she still has her son to get home to.  So instead of walking along the river, she pulls out her phone and tells me to pick a song.  I do and then she hands me an earbud and we slow dance on the trolley platform.  There were a couple of kisses thrown in there as well, not OMG, they swallowed tongues PDA type of kisses, just very short ones while we were dancing. Eventually her trolley arrived, we agreed that we would meet on Saturday at Smithfield News around noon so she could pick up the gifts, so all was cool. I was getting the gifts out of the office at work and I had a date for hockey game, ticket criss averted or do I thought.

I get to work on Saturday around 11:30 and was there for a good 8 hours ( I do do work there after all) no sign of Kat, do not hear from her, nothing.  Now I don't now if something happened to her or what, but I tried calling and sending messages (via Facebook) and she never got back to me.  A bunch of possibilities went through my mind, none of them good.  I thought maybe she had fallen off the wagon again ( provided she was ever on it) and could be on a bender some place, to perhaps her thinking Friday was a complete mistake, she wasn't attracted to me at all in he first place.  Rather it was a bad mixture of time, space and alcohol.

Of course if she was going to pass on seeing me Saturday for whatever reason, chances are very good that she would pass on the hockey game Monday as well.  It would be one thing to just fess up, say Friday was a mistake or accident or what not, but it was quite another to not hear anything.  So I had no idea if she still wanted to go to the game or not.  And I still didn't want to be stuck with s ticket.

That was about the time Debbie and I started talking on Saturday.  Long time blog readers may remember Debbie as the person who dove through the bedroom window the first time I was having relations with a female.  I realize that sounds like one of the make out scenes in an 80 s comedy, perhaps if I were having sex with Molly Ringwald then it would be complete.  Busting up my relations notwithstanding, Debbie and I have been good friends over the years, she is one of the sounding boards that I can turn to when there is generally something of import on my mind.  So I explained the events of Friday in all of their glorious detail, we both came to the same conclusion, that it was pretty fucking inconsiderate that should you have a change of mind or heart about the game you might want to let me know.  Wait, isn't how this whole fucking thing got started, by someone not saying that they changed their mind?  Why yes it is, which is why women as a general rule just suck.  So we continued to talk and Debbie jokingly said she would bug he ticket off of me, which is a no, because I got the seats for free to begin with, I wasn't going to start scalping freebies, least of all to my friends.  Instead I asked her how much of a warning she needed, she does not live in the city unlike yours truly, but I still wanted to give Kat time to say something, anything really.  We basically decided on two hours prior, now of course I am putting a friend's schedule on hold now too for this nonsense, but if something serious did happen it would give Kat ample time to get back to me.  If by ample time I mean all day Saturday, all day Sunday and Monday up until 5 pm.  Of course I did not hear anything and as I write about it, seeing it all spelled out on the page pisses me off all over again.  But I called Debbie and she made it to Pittsburgh (fighting rush hour and game day traffic no less) in about an hour and a half.  We walk over to the arena and slid in the door literally one and a half minutes before face off.

So it only took four tries to get someone to go to a hockey game.  I must suck at that or something.