Dan's Papers - October 19, 2007 - Twentysomething... By David Lion Rattiner

It seems like every time I decide to relax for a weekend, I have missed "the most amazing experience of my life," according to my friends. I can't tell if it is because I am cursed or if it is because people tend to embellish a bit on how much fun they have.

I know for a fact that people like to embellish. "Oh my God, we went to this awesome party at this sick house. There must have been five hundred people there and everybody was taking off their clothes and jumping into the swimming pool."

Sounds like a pretty good story, right? Well it is, but in actuality, there were about five people there and the people that jumped into the swimming pool were wildly unattractive and you only stayed there for fifteen minutes.

With this being said, I still think that I am officially cursed. Last weekend, my buddy Joel sent me a text message late Saturday night asking if I wanted to go to the Jets vs. Philadelphia game. By the time I received the text message, I was asleep in bed and did not see it until I woke up the next morning, which was around ten a.m. I was pumped when I woke up because my day was going to be filled with tortellini and football. Then I checked my phone and my heart sank. "Yo Dave, I got an extra ticket to the Jets game. Get me back if you want to go, it should be fun."

I started to rationalize. Okay, so you missed a free ticket to a game? Big deal. It would have been a horribly long drive anyway and the tickets were probably lousy if Joel got them for free. I threw on the game, boiled up some water and began cursing at Chad Pennington. "YOU SUCK! STOP CALLING AUDIBLES AND THEN THROWING INTERCEPTIONS. GAHHHHHH!!!"

I texted Joel my frustration and never got a text back. He probably got lost on the way to the game, I thought. The poor guy is probably stuck in traffic, kudos to me for deciding to sleep in on Sunday and sticking to my original plan.

On Monday, I saw Joel in the office because he works as a graphic designer here at the paper. "So they lost huh? You must have been bummed," I said.

"Dude, you missed the most amazing experience of your life," he said with a smile.

"The tickets I had were one row behind the players man! All of the players' wives were buying us beer, and we went back into the players lounge and chilled with Donovan McNabb."

"I'm not man. I was sitting right behind Chad Pennington's mom and was like, "Your son sucks!" and she was all like "ahh."

Apparently Joel had the greatest hookup for receiving free sports tickets in history. According to him, he also got to talk to Donovan McNabb's mom, who is the lady in the Campbell's Soup commercials. "No way," I said.

"Yeah man, it was crazy."

"You mean to tell me that I could have told Chad Pennington that he sucks right to his face?"

"Yeah, I mean you would have gotten your ass beat, but yeah."

I looked at my work computer and felt like I had just been punched in the stomach. I really screwed up big time here.

"Well let me tell you what you missed," I said. "The tortellini I made was the most amazing thing I have ever had, and I got it at HALF PRICE at the IGA in Montauk, and after the game I took the sickest nap dude. You totally missed it."