Another Nasty road trip

Jamie had a football game in Connecticut yesterday. Hubby and I like to go to the away games....it's fun to take a road trip. This road trip was.........not so much fun. We left at 2:45 to make the two hour trip to Hartford. The game was at 5:30. I'm one of those people that has a fetish for being on time for things. (on time meaning I have to be there early). We weren't two minutes down the road when Jamie called. One of the girls on the team had discovered she forgot her football pads. (are you freaking serious??? How old are you? How do you forget part of your uniform??) Would we be able to meet the girl's friend at the local mall? The friend would bring the pads to us and we could bring them down to Connecticut. I checked the time. 3:05. "We might be late for the game" I said to Jamie. "It only takes two hours to get here, and the friend will be there with the pads in 15-20 minutes." I wasn't all that excited about doing it........but.........I'm a sucker for my kids asking for help, so I said okay. Hubby and I turned the car around and went to the mall to wait. At 3:35, just as I was about to call the friend, she called me. "I'm about 45 minutes away from Salem. Can you come up and meet me at the Manchester Mall instead?" WHAT???!!!! 45 minutes????? I should have said no right then and there. Should have said there's no way I'm driving 20 minutes north to turn around and come south. But I pictured my daughter's face, and pictured disappointment when we showed up without the girl's pads, and foolishly said yes. We drove to Manchester. The woman showed up 10 minutes later. It's now after 4pm. The game is 2 1/2 hours south and starts in 1 1/2 hours. I had a hissy-fit and a pout-fest as my Hubby flew down the highway toward Hartford. Luckily, we were only scared to death by the sighting of one State Trooper. He was too busy chatting with another state trooper to notice we were 20 miles per hour over the speed limit. We pulled up to the stadium at 6:00 - only 1/2 hour late. We'd made the trip in two hours flat. As I ran into the stadium lugging the shoulder pads, I was happy to see it was only the end of the first quarter. And that the score was 20 - 0. Until I realized that the 20 was for the home team......and we were definitely the away team. Sadly, the game only went downhill from there. It kind of felt like New Jersey all over again. Terrible road trip and even more terrible game. Jamie told me afterwards that she'd only asked me to get the girl's should pads because she felt bad, but that the girl would have deserved it if she had to sit out the game. After all, she said, who forgets their shoulder pads?? She's more like me than she likes to think. The only saving grace for the trip was that we stopped at Rein's Deli on the way home. Hubby loves this place - in fact he ate more food than I've ever seen anyone eat in one sitting. He already has plans for what he wants to eat the next time he goes there. Thankfully, we have one more game to go see, and it's a home game. No more road trip games for us ...............this year.