Even Small Outings Can Be An Adventure
I recently learned that my mother-in-law is an avid basketball fan. The company I work for buys four OKC Thunder season tickets each year and makes them available to its employees. Having been able to take advantage of this on numerous occasions, I’ve come to believe that anyone who would want to go to a basketball game, has. I mean, the place is always packed for each game! I’m not quite sure how this belief came to be as I’ve never paid for a basketball ticket, myself, and have no idea, even, what the prices are, but there you have it. So, maybe it’s not as easy as I’ve led myself to believe. The last time I was graced with tickets, Roger mentioned that Ann, his mom, would probably want to go to one of the games. If that was okay with me. Of course it was but I couldn’t imagine my tiny, little mother-in-law wanting to deal with the crowd and noise just to watch basketball. Please understand that I am still getting to know my husband’s mom and vice versa and it wasn’t that I didn’t NOT want her to go. Roger assured me that this really would be something she’d enjoy. Sigh. Okay, dear. I’ll ask the next time I get tickets. I mean, she could always say, “No, thank you.”, if it wasn’t something she’d be interested in.
When I received the tickets for yesterday’s game, I asked Roger if it was okay for me to text his mom and invite her up for the day. She lives about an hour-and-a-half away so I thought it would be fun to see if she wanted to join us for church, lunch after, and then the game. Turns out, she did. Ann beat us to the church (no real surprise, there), we took her to a truck stop for lunch (don’t knock it til you’ve tried it!), and then to the game we went.
Since we had also invited Roger’s cousin, I figured it would be best if both boys sat next to each other and I’d sit next to Ann, with me and Roger in the middle so I could put my hand on his leg or hold hands with him or other gross stuff like that. By the time the game ended, I’d wished I’d asked her to sit in between us so Roger could have enjoyed her reactions as much as I did. She absolutely LOVED it. As many of you probably know, they don’t show near as much of the extras on TV as you get to see at the game. Time outs bring you beer or car commercials when you’re watching at home. Time outs at the arena bring you cheerleaders, T-shirt cannons, free throw competitions, and more. Ann commented about how much you miss when you only watch the game on TV. And she got to see Steven Adams in person. From many MANY rows away, but still… He’s one of her favorites.
We got a giant cookie and nachos (not combined) to share between the four of us, along with a drink for each. You know, because you have to get some kind of food type stuff when you’re at a basketball game. I would have tried to catch a T-shirt but they didn’t come up that high in our section. We laughed at the people they showed on the jumbotron. I may have pounded on Roger’s leg to make sure he saw the proposal during Kiss Cam. We laughed at the man in front of us who was dancing to one of the songs. We rolled our eyes about the two guys who, almost literally, never looked up from their cell phones throughout the entire game. We laughed because one of us thought “Shootstwo” was one of the players names but also sounded like it might be a type of small dog. In short, we had a great time.
The point of all this is, don’t assume that something you take for granted wouldn’t be exciting for someone else. Because I listened to Roger, I had a better time at the game than I usually would have. I got to see it for the first time again, through someone else’s eyes and take joy in the pleasure it gave her. It wasn’t the road less traveled, for us, but it still made all the difference.