Madness in March

I didn't post yesterday because I was hungover. Fine. Are you happy? I had a couple too many drinks celebrating my non-Irish heritage. Then, after a little more than six hours sleep, I woke up just in time to shower and make it to work five minutes late. My headache lasted until 3 p.m., at which point I broke down and took an Advil. That stuff works miracles.

But enough about my liquor consumption. Yesterday was the most important day of the year because it was the opening of the NCAA Basketball tournament. Yep. Everyone's favorite time of lost work productivity (estimated at $1.8 billion) began with a slew of Cinderella upsets including Ohio University, Murray State and Old Dominion. And chances are your boss was taking more than a sly peek at the TV or the computer to watch Villanova barely beat Robert Morris.

The beginning of March Madness reminds me of one of my favorite Hollywood stories. I will now share it with you.

"Can you fax this right away?" my boss asks me as he hands me a few sheets of paper. "It's urgent."

I don't look at the contents. I only see the cover sheet has a certain network president's name on it. This must be important stuff. No time to dally. So with the efficiency of a Swiss watch, I dart to the fax machine and start dialing.

The machine rings busy.

Drat!

So I try it again.

Double Drat!

And again.

Even more Drat!

Slightly panicked, I did what any dutiful temp would do under the circumstances. I call over and, with urgent politeness, ask if they're having problems with their fax machine.

"Yeah," the assistant replies nonchalantly. "The machine's jammed right now because everyone is sending in their brackets. Don't worry. As long as it gets here before the games start, you'll be fine."

I peek under the coversheet and see this "urgent" document is my boss's tournament picks. He had UCLA winning the whole thing.

They lost to Florida in the finals 73-57.