Jess and I woke at 4:30, packed our stuff and left for the airport at 5 a.m. to avoid any rush hour traffic to Phoenix and return the car to its off-airport location. Renting from a local company, we paid $30 (indluding taxes and fees) for the car we'd held for a day, and the guy who rented it to me waived the $15 fee it would've cost because I'm under 25.

Just as we were about to board the plane, they announced the flight was overbooked, and Jess did not hesitate to give up her seat for the $300 voucher. She was rerouted through Denver, to arrive at 6:20 p.m. I got on the flight and took my seat in 24D, on the aisle one row from the back. As the plane filled, I realized that I was in the wrong seat -- I was supposed to be in 24C, on the aisle, but the other side. I turned to the young, dark-haired woman sitting there and asked her what seat she had. It was 24D, where I was, so we just stayed where we were. She had been sitting there when I boarded. I knew I was on the aisle in row 24, so I just took the other one. The man next to me asked if I was going home or going on vacation, and as we got to talking he asked where I worked and I told him. He's from Freehold -- and we found out later his wife works with my father. Small world.

So as we talk, the woman in my seat across the aisle joins in because she's from New Jersey and had been out for the game. Her parents live in Sea Girt and she works in the City -- it's the same woman who was in front of me on that flight out. So we spent most of the flight home talking about school, New Jersey, New York and other stuff -- anything but football, though we did agree that the Notre Dame Band rocked.

My sister's friend Lauren picked me up at Newark, and when we got to my house, my mom told me my sister was now arriving at midnight. Jess gave up her seat again in Denver for another $200, and I wished I didn't have to work that night, because I'd be $500 in Continental vouchers richer.

After getting to work to get all the comments from my coworkers out of the way -- that's not the reason I went, I was supposed to be in work, but it did get all the comments out of the way -- I struggled through the night with little sleep, though lifted by the Orange Bowl, which at least provided a happy end to the college football season in the form of Florida State becoming the victim of an ass-kicking. One guy at work came up to me laughing and commented about the game. "You know," I replied, "I've never seen Notre Dame play so much like Penn State." He looked at me, acknowledging the clever comeback incorporating his alma mater, and said, "Well, yeah."

I got home after work, went straight to bed about 1 a.m., and woke up 12 hours later.

It was a fabulous time, and as I told Courtenay, I still would've gone even had I known the outcome of the game beforehand.