Yu-Gi-Oh Regional Tournament

**I forgot the camera so had to take pics with my phone. Sorry for the picture quality!

Saturday was a special day. Sam has been waiting months to go to and participate in a Yu-Gi-Oh regional tournament in Edison, NJ. Dave took him to a Yu-Gi-Oh event in Edison a few months ago and Sam really enjoyed himself but he's never been in any kind of tournament or anything. SO, he's been saving up (with the help of Christmas money, too) to enter the bi-annual regional tournament that was held on Saturday. It is about an hour away and it was always assumed that Dave would take him. UNTIL we remembered that Dave had a dentist appt. scheduled at the same time! SO, that left me to take him and, luckily, I found someone to watch Caleb and Peter while Dave was at the dentist.

We left bright and early at 8 a.m. I was looking forward to sleeping in this weekend, but hey, you win some you lose some. Some parents spend their Saturdays watching their kids play in basketball tournaments, tennis tournaments, whatever. Not us. We've never done anything like that!

Sam was excited but really nervous. I felt bad for him that he was so nervous but I guess that's part of the excitement, right? After we got registered and settle in, we met a nice 14 yr. old boy and his parents and sat and chatted with them. Sam and the boy practiced dueling, comparing cards, etc. They had driven 2 1/2 hrs. to get there! I guess I shouldn't have been complaining about the distance! I was really glad to meet these people there; I'll explain why shortly.

Sam had a great time. He played 5 rounds, winning only 1. It was a good learning experience for him, though. He was definitely one of the few young kids there. I'd say the average age was 16-17. Sam looked TINY sitting in between all those teenagers. Whenever I couldn't find him, I'd just scan the crowd and look for the "dip" in height and there he was. There were some 40-50 year old men playing, too. Some of them were with their kids and some of them weren't with anyone. Weird.

In between rounds, they could duel other players for fun, check out the vendors who were selling and trading cards, or go around and trade cards with other players. Although Sam is very quiet and soft spoken (in public), he went right up to complete strangers who were much older than him and ask them if they were interested in trading cards. Sometimes he made some good trades and sometimes it came to nothing. At one point he made a trade with someone and then took that card up to a vendor who paid him $5 for it! He had a good time, but after being there for seven, seven, that's SEVEN hours, I convinced him it was time to go. We still had an hour drive back home!

OK, so here's the scoop on MY experience. It was held in a church basement. It was a good sized room but get this, there were 400-500 people participating! Out of all the people there, there were maybe 10 women, including myself, in the whole room. Now the KIND of people who usually come to these events, I'd say are a cross between nerd/geeks and gothic/gangsta's from the Hood. And they wear mostly black or gray. And PLEASE, could they all just PLEASE PULL THEIR PANTS UP?!?? I am SO not into seeing their underwear. But I digress...

So here's why I said I was happy to meet this family. Their boy was really nice AND he was wearing a pink button down polo shirt AND his pants weren't falling down at all. I sat with his mom and we talked for hours (while I protectively clutched my purse to my chest...SHE was smart enough not to even bring her purse IN) and we helped each other keep track of our two boys. (Next time I will put Sam in a pink shirt. It was very easy to spot)! Alas, they left hours before us so I had to make new friends. Here's me with my new friend Caiba. That's not his real name, that's the alias he goes by. I don't know what his real name is. And no, I'm not kidding.

Here's Sam trading cards with his new friends from 'da hood. That's Caiba in the foreground.
Oh, I almost forgot. OK, so after about 6 hours, I start smelling B.O. Whenever I smell B.O. I automatically assume it's me. I'm a sweaty person, in general, and I have been known (though rarely) to forget to put on deodorant in my early morning bleary eyed state. So I'm sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, I stink! I forgot to put on my deodorant! And then I realize, I'm in a room full, FULL of teenage boys. Surely I'M not the one who is stinky! I had to focus on breathing through my mouth for the next hour until I convinced Sam to leave.

And speaking of being in a room full of young men. Not one of them hit on me or even looked at me the whole time I was there. Not that I wanted them to, EEEEeeeew! ...but it just goes to show how old and motherly I must look! You'll notice, even Caiba is averting his eyes away from me...