March Madness

Long before Selection Sunday, I decided that I wanted to go to March Madness this year. A few friend were on board, and we bought tickets to the Greensboro, NC round. Why Greensboro? Because the Philadelphia tickets were sold out. And Greensboro wasn't. Fast forward to Selection Sunday ... who is playing in Greensboro? Round 1: UNC/Radford, Duke/Binghamton, Texas/Minnesota, and LSU/Butler. Fun teams to watch! The plan was to sell our Thursday tickets and go to the Saturday games. With that lineup, we figured it shouldn't be that hard to execute our plan.

Until...BYU was slated to play in Philadelphia, and most NCAA Tourney-goers were heading to PA, not NC. It is closer, after all, and Cougars will follow their team anywhere. Myself included.

I think I called, texted, and/or emailed everyone I knew to see who wanted the tickets. But to no avail. Nothing seemed to be working, no one seemed to be able to take work off and go to the games, and we started to feel mixed emotions. Sure, we were out the money for the tickets, but more than that, we didn't want them to go to waste. Four games in one day? Someone needed to be able to experience the sheer excitement of that!

Wednesday night, 8:25p: I came home from running a few errands, and upon turning my computer on, noticed a message on Facebook from my friend Trevor. Trevor and I met at Duck Beach about three years ago, he lives in Raleigh, NC, and I completely forgot that the day before, I'd sent him a message to see if he or any of his friends were interested in the tickets. He asked if I still had the tickets, and gave me his phone number. I promptly called him to touch base. Yes, I still had the tickets. The question was could I find a way to get them to him by the next morning? The last FedEx pickup by my house was 7p, but I knew where the FedEx building by the airport was. I wonder if I could take it there?! I told him I'd do some legwork and see what I could do, so hang tight. And text me a shipping address, just in case. And this is what ensued:

I grabbed my purse (which had the tickets in it), and ran out the door after the 30 second update to Jenny, who was on her laptop looking up an address to call me with so I could get on the road and head in the general direction I thought I should go. I stopped by a FedEx Kinko's to get the packaging, got Trevor's text with his address, told him to pray that this worked, and filled out the label while I drove. Jenny called, gave me the address, and told me their last pickup was 9p. It was 8:40p. I punched it into my GPS and drove. Exited into a very dark business park, and drove until I was instructed to make a left turn. Into a parking lot with security gates, and a sign that read "delivery trucks and security passes only." Hmm, not a good sign. And no FedEx in sight either. A car came the other direction. I hung up on Jenny, and jumped out of my car to flag him down as he sped by me. Luckily, he slammed on his brakes, reversed, and rolled down the window just enough for me to see his dark sunglasses covered face. I asked if he knew where the FedEx place was, he naturally didn't have any idea what I was talking about, since this was the FAA building where he worked. Even if there had been a FedEx drop, I wouldn't be able to get in because this is a secure building. I told him the address, he didn't know what to tell me. Thanks anyway! I got back in my car, freaking out now that it was 8:50p and I was so close, yet so far away. I drove across the street into another "private property, no tresspassing" sign. And then I turned the other direction. Literally, out of nowhere, appeared the FedEx building, with a giant semi pulling out. I parked and RAN in, and must have looked pretty ridiculous since the two guys manning the counter were laughing at me. I said "do you know how hard you are to find??" They laughed and said "were you using your GPS?" Yes, I was. "Do you want to know why it doesn't work?" Yes, that would be nice. "That building over there is CIA, and they have all the satellite signals blocked." Huh, that makes sense. At least there was a reason! Then one of the guys said "and hey, you still have 5 minutes to spare! If you would have been here an hour ago, your package isn't going out for another 5 minutes anyway." WHEW!

Signed, sealed, waiting to be delivered. I got back into my car, took a deep breath of relief, and called Trevor to let him know he'd better call his three closest friends and tell them what they were in for on Thursday. After all of that (I felt like I was on The Amazing Race or something), I can't believe it actually worked!

What would we do without Facebook and FedEx??