They told me I was foolish.
They laughed at me.
They mocked me.
I was #25 in a line of 24. Thirty people had come between #24 and myself but had been scared off. They were told stories of the futility of their efforts. They were convinced that their's was not the noblest of causes.
But I was not the only one to refuse to listen. Another thirty people came after me and stood in defiance of the inevitable.
When sympathetic friends and family members arrived with deliveries of food and hot beverages, they taunted me by saying that it was only for those who stood in the "real" line. I was the headmaster of the loser queue.
Even the Man in the Yellow Jacket (make all the Curious George references that you want right now) told me it was pointless. That the man in front of me was the last one with any hope whatsoever.
Then came the announcement...
"All of you must clean up all your garbage and break down all tents, chairs, and other apparatus you have with you. It cannot remain on the sidewalk. It must be in your cars and you will have to stand in line for the next hour. Anyone who leaves the line will not be allowed back in regardless of the reason why. You have 10 minutes to pack it in!"
We raced to our vehicles to put away our equipment and then continued to stand shivering in the cold for what turned out to be an additional hour and a half.
The Man in the Yellow Jacket gave us no hope of ever achieving our goal. We were still just second-rate citizens.
Then it happened...
Four people jumped out of line ahead of me. Suddenly there was a glint of hope. Were they actually in line waiting or were they just friends of people officially waiting in line? Nobody knew for sure. They weren't telling. The Man in the Yellow Jacket wasn't changing his tune either.
The doors opened and we began to slowly file in to our own personal Mecca in pairs. Only two at a time like animals herded in Noah's ark. It was an attempt to control the forecasted madness. It was an arduous process. We all still stood shivering in line wishing we could just get a taste of the heat. But we stood strong nonetheless.
As the man ahead of me approached the entryway, the Man in the Yellow Jacket flashed the final ticket. It read a machine-stamped "24." He made sure I could see it and then gave me a pathetic head shake. Then he handed the ticket to the guy ahead of me.
I looked the Man in the Yellow Jacket in the eyes. Defiantly I proclaimed, "but you have another in your pocket."
"Do I?"
"You do."
He stared at me through squinted eyes as though judging just how much I believed my own ridiculous statement. Then he pulled his hand out of his pocket with another ticket. Like Charlie, I beamed knowing I held what amounted to a modern-day admission pass to Willie Wonka's vaunted chocolate factory. The Man in the Yellow Jacket gave me a proud smirk knowing the hassling I had endured for the previous three-and-a-half hours. He was impressed by my tenacity, my unwillingness to budge.
And I wasn't even the last. The man behind me, also suffering from the snipes of those ahead of us, wound up a winner. He was the real #24. I was #23. I was Jordan. Sandberg. Hester.
My prize?
Sooooo worth the wait. Got Excite Truck in addition to the Wii Sports that came bundled with the system and ordered an extra controller that should be in sometime today or tomorrow. I think our next purchase will likely be Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz as Katie said it sounds like fun. If it's a game she can get behind, then we'll get it.
A big "thank you" to Katie for putting up with my childish geekiness the last several weeks and also waiting in line with me the last hour. And another big "thank you" to my parents who decided to buy this for me as my birthday present. When they couldn't find it themselves, they just gave me the cash, instead, to buy it on my own.
