I’m not quite the lunatic I used to be. And nothing used to bring out the crazy like the aptly named March Madness basketball tournament.
In four years at Indiana University, I never missed a home game, and knew exactly where to stand above the tunnel to touch Bobby Knight’s shoulder as the team came back out after halftime. Creepy much? Knight received technical fouls for throwing things on the court twice. I don’t know where the chair is, but the program he threw against Boston University on December 13, 1991 is framed in my basement. So when I attended a bachelor party weekend in Las Vegas half-a-dozen years later, confident that I knew more about college basketball than the odds makers, my lunacy kept me placing double-or-nothing bets, just trying to get back to even, until the only thing left on which to wager was a West Coast NBA game. I took the under and felt vindicated until I realized that the sufficiently low score was tied, and the game was going into overtime. Meanwhile, my fiance, Sheri, was perplexed as her debit card was declined when she tried to rent a movie at Blockbuster. I proceeded to get so drunk that I was kicked out of a dance club that night. Twice (I’m not sure how I got back in for round two of drunken belligerence). I woke up the next morning in the hotel room I shared with eight guys, lying in a puddle of my own puke. (Should that be lay or lie? Given the vulgarity of the rest of the sentence, I am not sure it matters.) Later that day, I told Sheri about the $1,200 I lost amidst a crowd at the O’Hare Airport. I thought it less likely that she’d kill me in front of all those people.
