Last night was one of the most painful nights in Laker history, no doubt about it. It was so awful to watch the end of the game that Lucy curled up in my arms. Daniel left the room and tried to watch the Cartoon Network. Caroline said, “Now I remember why I don’t like basketball.” I woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night and wondered if it had all been a bad dream. Unfortunately, the Lakers allowed the Celtics to come back from an unprecedented deficit in the NBA Finals. Wow, that smarts. I almost feel like Debbie after Miami lost to Penn State in the national championship game. (She went to her room and slammed the door after Vinny Testaverde threw an interception at the goal line to end a brilliant last minute drive.)
The loss brought back a bunch of bad memories. Maybe I need to forgive Larry Bird for waving the towel and McHale for grabbing Kurt Rambis by the neck and slamming him to the floor. I don’t remember if I cried when the Dodgers lost to Reggie Jackson and the Yankees in 1977, but I cringed when Daniel checked out a book on Mr. October a few months ago. My blood pressure rises when I see Bevo, Vince Young, or burnt orange. (No offense to any UT friends out there...) And I still can’t believe that USC lost to Stanford last year. I know that you win a few, but sometimes it’s true what Maime Trotter says to Galadriel Hopkins near the end of The Great Gilly Hopkins: “All that stuff about happy endings is lies.”
