Trapped in Tunnel Traffic

Here is another pair of items that I finally threw away a few weeks ago with the Sports-N-Stuff tickets.  These are tickets to Circle Line Cruise around Manhattan.  I bought them for $5 each when the sales folks came in to one of my classes in college.  This was not an unusual occurrence in my college, as these folks stopped by once in a while to sell tickets like this, or tickets to Comic Strip Live.

I must’ve bought these tickets about 10 years ago without any plans to use them.  When the opportunity finally came in the form of a girlfriend (not my wife) about a year or two after I bought these tickets, I made reservations for two on this cruise.  Of course, I had to pay more than just the $5, I believe I had to pay about $25 to $30 per ticket, and maybe more to renew the tickets because these tickets expired when I tried to use them.  But still, for a cruise around Manhattan, with one or two free drinks, I thought it was worth it.

I picked upn my then-girlfriend (in Ridgefield, NJ) in my then-car (Mitsubishi Eclipse).  I kept the cruise thing a complete surprise, as I drove down the Jersey side of Hudson River and into the Lincoln Tunnel.  The cruise was leaving right around there, on the west side of Manhattan, at about 38th Street or so.  I wasn’t too familiar with New York driving and parking back then, so I drove around a couple of blocks looking for a good parking spot.  Notice I said “good” parking spot, not “any” parking spot.  I did see an open spot or two, but I wanted to find a better spot.

I still had time before the cruise, so I wasn’t in a rush… but the rest of the traffic was.  It was rush hour, and there was the usual evening trffic jam leaving New York.  And by accident, I ended up in that traffic.  By the time I reaized the traffic I was in was only going one way, it was too late to get out.  I was in the innermost lane, covered by two outer lanes from freedom, in bumper-to-bumper traffic.  There were also cones set up to prevent anyone from cutting into the line.  Well, in thi case, they prevented me from leaving the line.

Stuck going back to NJ, I was very disappointed.  We would not make the cruise in time, as cruise is not something you can be late for.  I finally spilled the guts on what I had planned, and although she was sad it didn’t work out, she was still impressed.

So I ended up not using those tickets on that day.  I kept the tickets, thinking I would use them later.  Well, about 8 years have passed since then.  I still had the tickets, but the reservation phone line was now disconnected and their website was also no longer there.  These tickets were now officially worthless.  So they finally went in the trash.

Hoarding I

When I was cleaning my room a couple of weeks ago, I made decisions to throw out a few of the items.  This is one of those items: Sports-N-Stuff tickets.

Sports-N-Stuff is a place for kids and teenagers: they have sports, like a basketball court and batting cages, and stuff, like a video game room and laser tag.  I think my first visit was during the summer of 1991, when imy day camp made a visit.  If I’m wrong about that, then it was no later than 1993-1994.  Anyway, the place was awesome.  Video games and batting cages???  How cool was that?  Unfortunately, I didn’t get too many chances to visit because it was not easy to get to without a car.  I did make a couple of trips with friends when I did get a car, and those trips were fun as well.

These tickets are from the video games they had over there – some games, like skeeball, (or maybe it was all games) gave you tickets after you played them, and you can exchange the tickets for anything they had over there, which were mostly toys.  Of course, most people only get enough tickets for a plastic monkey or a pencil set, so those remote-control cars were just pipe dreams.

I must not have had the time to cash in the tickets one time and just kept them.  And after that, whenever I had to clean my room or was moving to another house, I kept these tickets.  It wasn’t that hard, since I kept them in a small pouch, and just threw it in with the rest of my crap.  I wasn’t going to go out of my way to cash them in, but if I happened to be driving by, I planned on making a stop.  Two little problems with that plan was that 1. I never drove by, and 2. tickets were in the back of my desk drawer so I probably wouldn’t even have remembered.

So finally, I decided to cut my losses.  After almost 15 years, I threw out the Sports-N-Stuff tickets.  I finally started thinking smart.  I had about 150 – 200 tickets here… what could I possibly get with that?  A mini pencil sharpener?  More crap to take up space?  It was not worth it.  I bagged it.

In case it isn’t clear, I am kind of a hoarder.  I am nowhere near the hoarder that those people on the show are, but I do like to keep things that hold value

, no matter how little it may be.  But I am learning to simplify my life, and learning to let go of these little things.  I threw out a couple of other items, and I will continue on “Hoarding II”.