Tim Tracer

So me and Tim were on the couch in the morning rewatching the Lakers vs. Celtics game — the one we missed the night before because of the house being overrun by flies we couldn’t contain… but that’s a story for another time.

During halftime, we got to talking, and Tim casually mentioned that he had never been to a live sporting event before. Which honestly shocked me. If you know Tim, you know he’s obsessed with sports — football, soccer (the other football), F1, baseball, you name it. But his number one? LeBron.

He literally made his own music app — LeBronify — just so he could organize every LeBron TikTok remix in one place. Keep in mind, Tim had zero experience building apps before this. He just figured it out because his love for LeBron runs that deep.

So I hopped on my browser and checked the game schedule. And by some miracle, the Lakers were playing in our city that night. I bought us two tickets immediately and kept it a surprise.

Later that evening, I told Tim we were going out for dinner and told him to throw on something decent. Then I tossed him his LeBron Lakers jersey and said, “You’re gonna need this.”

He looked at me confused, then slowly realized what was going on — and the smile that hit his face was unreal. Like nobody had ever done something nice for him before.

We got to the arena, found parking, waited in line, and once we got inside, I let Tim wander around a bit so he could take it all in. It was his first ever live game, and I wanted him to really feel the moment. We snapped a few pics and then made our way to our seats just as tipoff happened.

First quarter was perfect. LeBron went off — 25 points and five monster dunks. Tim was screaming louder than anyone in the entire building. It was hilarious.

But then… things went sideways.

The seats in front of us were oddly empty at first. Then, at the start of the second quarter, a cheerleading squad came marching down the stairs toward our section. I figured they were headed to the sidelines to cheer or something.

Nope.

They sat right in front of us. Like, directly in front of me and Tim.

Then — and I swear I’m not making this up — they started stacking. Like full-on shoulder-on-shoulder cheerleader formation until there were nearly 40 people standing on top of each other in front of us, all the way up to the ceiling.

I looked at Tim. Tim looked at me. We were both in disbelief.

I paid good money for those seats, and now I couldn’t see a single part of the game. So naturally, I did what any normal, calm adult would do:
I pulled out my phone and started recording.

In the video, you can see the absurd human tower in front of us. After that, I stormed off to find an usher and complain.

He looked at me, kinda laughed, and said, “Bro… those tickets were cheap because of the cheerleading stack. It says it on the ticket.”

I looked down at mine, and sure enough — in tiny print — it said:
“Your view may be obscured by the cheerleading stack at the start of the second quarter.”

I was stunned. Sat back down next to Tim and apologized.
He just smiled and said, “Bro, it’s all good. You’re the only one who ever took me to a game. That was more than enough.”

So we left around halftime and went home to watch the rest of the game on TV.

But when I turned the TV on… the cheerleading stack wasn’t even on the broadcast.

I looked back at my ticket again, and there it was:
“The cheerleading stack only blocks the view during one quarter of the game.”

We could’ve stayed. The view would’ve been fine by the third quarter. I was so mad. But whatever — at least we went, right?

And honestly, I wasn’t even that upset…

Until Tim’s ant friends ate all my lizard’s food the next morning.

But that’s a story for another time…