This past Sunday afternoon 03/09/09 I watched the Magic narrowly hang on to defeat the short-handed celtics, despite quite an awful second half Orlando collapse.  I leave the city, jump on the Mass-Pike and stop at your typical fast-food rest stop.  I get in line to order a chicken salad and protein shake as I'm approached by a man in a thick Boston accent, "they really gave it to the C's today, huh?" I was shocked at the question, "uhmm, well they had a huge lead, about 25 points (22 in reality) and it came down to Allen missing a game-tying three with 33 seconds left in the game." 

The man then asked if I was from Florida, I let him know that I'm just a resident of Connecticut who grew up and remained a life-long hardcore Orlando Magic fan.  Then casually he replied, "Oh yeah? Nick Anderson is a good friend of mine."  Not sure of what to say, I got a bit excited and said something along the lines of, "Wow, really? Yeah man, Nick Anderson, I love him."  (I decided against mentioning anything to do with free-throws)  He then said, yeah Scott Skiles is my favorite point guard ever and I agreed and threw in, "yeah I'll always love D-3 too."  So, we're still waiting for our food and I say, "What's Nick up to now?" to see if he was really friends with him and he says, "I really don't know what he's doing now."  At that point, I began to question the validity of the man's prior statement. Then, it got really weird as he said,"You gotta hear this story about Nick man."

He proceeds to tell me he worked at a golf-course in the Orlando area, where he met and befriended many of the players over the years.  Nick was a frequent golfer at said golf club and the two struck up a friendship.  He said a bunch of the guys at the club and a bunch of players would hang out at another buddy's house, quite often.  They played a rare and dangerous, I mean very, very dangerous variation of a drinking game.  This friend had a huge fish tank which was inhabited by two large piranhas.  

The story goes, that the group of friends, maybe 5-6 guys, would start the game by drinking a 12 pack.  When the 12-pack ran out, every guy would then simultaneously dunk one hand into the piranha tank and whoever was the first to pull their hand out had to go to the store to buy the next 12-pack and on and on they would play. The man told me the first time they played with Nick was right after he signed a long-term deal with the Magic and knew there would be no way, absolutely no way Nick would ever take part in such a dangerous game. To my surprise, the man swore that Nick had never missed one "game" and was always up for dunking his hand into the tank.  Thankfully Nick was never injured, but he said guys often got nicked and one of their buddies even lost a portion of one of his fingers.

We shared a laugh about the stupidity of the game and the dire consequences Nick would have paid with his career and with his contract obligations if God Forbid, he lost a finger.  His buddy then walked over said, "Hey! You guys really whooped the Celtics today!" to which I continued the same response about  the near epic collapse and the original guy said to his buddy, "Hey! I've told you about Nick Anderson and the piranhas before right?" His friend answered shaking his head, "What a nutcase." I then said goodbye,  wrapping up what was the most random & strangest rest-stop conversation of my life.