Change Agent

Thursday night was crazed in our house. Two sons were preparing for their last day of finals, followed by packing their trunks for summer camp, in turn followed by packing their suitcases for a pre-camp vacation week in Maine. My wife and I each had piles of unfinished work, followed by our getting packed for vacation. And we both needed to be out of the house before the boys awoke for early morning business meetings. Late at night, I turned on the Boston Celtics game fully expecting it to be over, having forgotten the ridiculously late tip off time. When I saw The Green down by over 20 points I shut it off immediately; Sunday would be another day.

As I headed up to join my wife in bed, I caught site of the huge pile of ironing which I had planed to get through during last Sunday’s game. Knowing that I needed some of these clothes for next week, I reluctantly headed to the basement to iron away. I first turned to a rebroadcast of the last inning of the 2007 Red Sox Mothers’ Day Miracle game; though I’ve seen it a dozen times, it never looses it’s appeal. I switched back to the Celtics only to discover them down by only 11. Wait; could they really pull this off? The rest, as they say, is history. The more I ironed, the more the Celtics scored. When I got through the pile, I didn’t dare stop ironing, my Irish superstition taking over. I ironed everything in sight — dishtowels, hankies, anything that allowed me, and the Celtics, to keep going.

So on Friday, listening to sports talk radio during my early morning drive to my 7:15 meeting, when caller after caller lamented not having stayed up to see what was being dubbed by many the greatest comeback game in NBA Final history, I was pleased that a pile of ironing allowed me to be one of the few people I knew who actually saw the game live!