Waiting
By ice rivers
- 172 reads
Whole lot of waiting goin' on.
A couple days ago, we went to see the Bills play against the Panthers in downtown Charlotte.
Neither team has ever won a Super Bowl but the Bills have been waiting a lot longer.
My companions to the game were Lynn, her brother Mark and Mark's grandson Logan. The gates for the contest wouldn't open until five o'clock. We made our way to Gate 4 which was closed. A long line had formed outside the gate. Everybody waiting.
At quarter past five the gate had still not opened. Everybody wondered what was causing the delay. I walked up to the entrance. I asked the gatekeeper why we were waiting. He didn't know. He was waiting himself. He wasn't gonna make any judgment.
I went back to the line. I told Logan that nobody ever remembers anything that anybody says when they are waiting. Logan's a ninth grader. He's waiting to start high school next week.
I advised him that if he wanted to tell anybody anything outlandish that this would be a good time because we'd all forget what he said anyway. Nobody ever remebers what was said while wating. I told him that I usually asked my date to marry me when we were waiting for a movie to start. They always said no which never bothered any of us because we forgot the whole "proposal" thing when the movie started.
Lynn said "that's not true. You shouldn't be telling him stuff like that."
I said "Don't worry he won't remember it anyways."
Just part of the waiting.
I went back to Logan and confessed that what I said wasn't true but he could prove me wrong in a couple of years if he remembered the fib I had just told him.
We'll have to wait a couple years to find out.
This story will help him remember.
This is why we write, when we wait. We want to leave something behind.
The gates finally opened and we all rushed into the stadium. I was thirsty from the waiting. I bought a twenty four ounce beer for 12 bucks and threw it down.
We made our way to our seats and waited for the game to begin.
It began to rain.
It began to pour.
The game was gonna be delayed.
We left our seats. We walked around a bit. Waiting walking is a whole different kind of walk. Walking waiting is a whole different kind of wait.
Nobody was in the stands. Everybody was walking around waiting, except for the others who were standing around waiting. The only seats were inside the stadium. We bought a plastic rain poncho. We had to wait in line to get the poncho because everybody else had the same idea.
After pulling on our ponchos, we were tired of standing and walking while we waited. We headed back to our seats. We decided we would wait in the rain, where we could sit and wait. When we got back to the entrance for our seats, we found out that we couldn't enter because there was a threat of lightning and the stadium had to be emptied and remain empty while we waited for the sky to clear.
The sky didn't clear. The sky grew dark, very dark. The rain pounded. A woman looked at her watch and panicked. She said that according to her watch, the rain would continue for the next half hour then would let up for fifteen minutes and then begin again for the rest of the evening.
The sky was falling and she was getting the hell outta here.
Bad news.
Dark news.
The tickets had cost us $150 each.
The rain continued.
We walked over to a concession stand. A long line at the concession stand meant more waiting and standing while we waited for the inner stadium to open so that we could wait sitting down in the darkness and the rain and the thunder and the lightning.
The wait seemed endless. When we finally made our order; we bought a couple of hot dogs. We also bought a souvenir Panthers cup which guaranteed "endless" Diet Coke. We could refill from the fountain anytime that our cup became empty.
Meanwhile Logan and Mark had left for their seats and were presumably waiting at another level. Lynn called Mark on her phone and told him that we had just bought two ponchos for twenty bucks.
Mark said that he had just bought two ponchos for eight bucks.
Plus, we found out that Mark and Logan had free tickets because Logan's Dad knew a guy who had season's tickets and wasn't going to use them for this game because he was waiting for the regular season to begin and he was worried about rain.
The waiting folks were getting restless. The crowd started yelling.
As if in response to the swearing tumult, the rain stopped. We were allowed to go to our seats in the dark stadium.
We no sooner sat down in our wet seats then the stadium lights went back on.
The weather had become perfect.
The game proceeded. The Panthers started pounding the Bills which didn't matter much because this was an exhibition game and didn't matter much except for the players on the field who were trying to make the team. For some of them, tis would be the end of the line.
We began enjoying ourselves. We relaxed. We had made it through the rain. We hadn't panicked and left early only to find out on the way home that the weather had cleared. We avoided that nightmare.
In the end, we had a great time. Years later, when we willtell the story of the evening, we will leave out the part about the waiting.
We'd have forgotten about it except for these words that stay to be rediscovered someday when we're waiting for something else to do and out of nowhere these words reappear and we read them.
Yesterday, I found out that my long time buddy Zap was in the process of being overcome by brain cancer. Tomorrow, he is going through Gamma knife brain surgery. His family decided to celebrate his life before he passes away. Zap is a lifelong Biils fan. He's been waiting 60 years for the Bills to win a Super Bowl.
I've been waiting as long as Zap. Looks like my waiting will go on a little longer than his. I'll know more Monday when I talk to my surgeon.
- Log in to post comments