Awhile back I had one of the most surreal experiences of my  life. Being a life long Bruins fan, and the fact that they managed to make it past the first round of the playoffs, I decided I needed to see at least one playoff game before I die. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let that little thing called a ticket hold me back.

After spending hours at work failing to convince my alleged “diehard friends” to accompany me, I decided to fly solo and figure it out. Roughly twenty minutes before the puck dropped, I found myself without a ticket amongst scalpers willing to split up pairs.

I did what any diehard fan would do. I went to the infamous Penalty Box across from “the gahden”. Probably one of the few cash only bars left in Boston and the last refuge of the real fans. The ones who can actually name players behind Orr, Neely, and Bourqe. Gottta love a place where the door to the bathroom stall ends approximately ten inches above where the toilet seat sits. Women’s room too, but that’s part of another story.

So there I sat, broken hearted, drowning sorrows in two hands with Guinness and Jack Daniels. Down, but not out. I decided to bond with some A-rabs. Yep, that’s right. A-rabs. In an old ass, beat to shit hockey bar, three A-rabs just chillen’. Well, the situation just seemed to be too odd to ignore, so I bonded with them.

After a shot or three, they inform me they have an extra ticket to the game, and offer it to me for a couple bucks over face value. Feeling like this is Allah’s personal moment shining down on me, I promptly shell out cash, and proceed on my own personal Mecca to my seat, six rows from center ice. I then proceed to get absolutely shattered and quite loudly at that.

Somewhere along the line, I wanted to fit in with my fellow fans and opted to tie the plaid work shirt around my waist and buy myself a Terry “Tasmanian Devil” O’Reilly shirt.Unfortunately the only jeans I had in my car were ripped to hell and three years old. My hat, aged twice over. Consequently, I ended up looking like something thrown up by Seattle, circa 1992. Lord only knows what the sight of me, a fire lieutenant, and three A-rabs looked like on TV.

The next morning, the experience got even more surreal. Suddenly, I heard the phone go off and as I blinked my eyes open wondering where the stench of Jack Daniels was coming from (clearly my own aroma). The hangover hit me like a stampede of fat women charging a new Popeyes. I slowly recalled that I had agreed to go with the most recent ex to see the Dalai Lama at Gillette Stadium. Seeing as I had broken things off to “have some time alone and work on my drinking”, I imagine she was somewhat less than thrilled at the drunk who answered the door in a cold sweat, with a whalers hoodie, and a stench of liquor so bad I could fail a breathalyzer without actually blowing.

Despite this, I figured strolling to see the Dalai Lama at a football stadium after Allah getting me into a hockey playoff game was a good idea. The gods were shining down on me, but I was unprepared for what I was about to see.

I walked in to my own personal Simpsons episode, and the most surreal moment of my life.As we pulled up to the stadium, I saw a large blinking construction road sign that indicated, “Dalai Lama on the left, retail parking on the right.” After being directed to parking, I began my entrance into the stadium. Not only were they selling various books, clothing, and jewelry, but nachos and hot dogs as well. I wanted a t-shirt that said “Property of Buddha” or perhaps a foam finger that said “Lama Rama” or something of the like. Not since the sight of ATMs at Woodstock 99 have I seen unyielding power of commercialism invade a sacred event.

I even saw a fat woman leave half way through the Dalia’s lecture on freeing yourself from desire and material things, only to come back with a smoothie and fried dough.

Nothing like having the sight of the Dalia Lama wearing a Patriots hat interrupted by two fat cheeks waging their own personal war of yin and yang down the aisle as the buffalo that owns it goes back to her trough. The gluttony was yet to stop there.

The Lama, I must admit, is hilarious. The guy’s got a general upbeat outlook on life. He cracks a few jokes here and there and his mentality seems to be one of teaching people to look at themselves and be more tolerant. Nothing like watching a few yuppies and hippies ask him, “what one thing can we do to change the world?” and “how can we deal with all the bad things in this crazy world?” only get responses of “no one thing, world is really screwed up, many things” or “world not so crazy, we crazy, try to be more realistic and less crazy”. Of course I wasn’t completely fulfilled, I would have gone with a “lay off the fried dough slim tons and a shower wouldn’t hurt a few of you”. But hey, that’s just me.

The perfect ending to this unbelievably surreal experience occurred when I began making my exit from the stadium. As I strolled to my car, I witnessed a hippie, with prerequisite soul patch and accompanying douchebag ponytail, beep and raise his hands after jamming on the brakes of his rather large SUV to avoid running over a slim granola gal. Her response, the bird. Yep, the international “piss off” or “the highway salute”. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what the ol’ Lama meant in his speech about tolerance and living in a more simple manner.

And right about then, I was reassured in my believe that there is no hope for humanity as a civilization or a primal, post apocalyptic species. I promptly went home, went back into my basement, threw out more of my possessions, loaded up on liquor, and passed out dreaming about Thunderdome.