Saturday Night Ferver

Several weeks ago, a friend of mine invited me to come with him and some other friends to the May 5th Real Salt Lake game. I have been excited about this for weeks. Not only is The Bruce going to be in town (and I loooove The Bruce), but this game marks The Return of Cletus. Definitely a must-attend game.

And to be able to attend with friends--just plain awesomeness. These particular friends are funny. No other way to say it. I couldn't wait to hear their snide remarks, sarcastic commentaries and general exclamations of disbelief as our team lost gloriously.

I mean, this is Real Salt Lake. Love 'em but I'm a sucker for punishment. To call them a winning team would not only be false, but outright laughable.

So Saturday morning came and we arranged a carpool to go up to the game together. That meant the game was only a few hours away after weeks of anticipation! Then two little words inserted themselves in the front of consciousness: Stake Conference.

Now if you're not Mormon like I am, this probably means nothing to you. But if you are LDS, you know that Stake Conference is a twice-yearly meeting for everyone in a regional group of congregations. Higher-ups from our church leadership attend and it is generally a good experience. (Unless, like me, you have three small children who don't want to sit quietly in a chair for two hours...)

Stake Conference is always on a Sunday, but there is an adults session the Saturday night before. This session is always painful for me because Saturday nights are always my time to socialize, relax or have fun. To summarize: soccer is a heck of a lot more fun than stake conference. (I'm sure I'll repent of these heretical statements one day. Maybe. Umm... maybe.)

I battled my conscience for over an hour. My husband was completely unhelpful, withholding his opinion and only giving me subtle hints as to his feelings. (This is his way of trying to be supportive, but it is often not helpful.)

In the end, my conscience won. I was extremely annoyed. EXTREMELY. So I went to stake conference. It was nice. I left early to go to my dad's house. We watched the RSL game together in high definition on a DVR where we fast forwarded all the commercials. It was fun and the result--well--amazing. No, my team didn't win, but that didn't matter. (For more, see http://coachkreis.blogspot.com where I wrote my feelings on the drama.)

In the end I knew the final scoreline and saw all the goals. But I will never--ever--be able to guess the exchanges between my friends during the drama. There is no commentator that I can DVR. No highlights reel to watch over and over. My brain and my conscience are still battling after the fact, trying to decide who was victorious.

So what is the moral to the story? The point? The general thesis? If you figure it out, let me know.