Remember the end of "Ferris Buehler's Day Off" when Ferris runs into Mr. Rooney right outside the Buehler's back door? Ferris had just had the best day of his life and had miraculously beaten both his parents home. All he had to do was sneak up into bed and he was home free, he could declare victory. Then wham! He sees Mr. Rooney. He knew he was screwed, we knew he was screwed and had it not been for the heroics of his sister, he'd be on the five-year plan for high school.
The emotion Ferris must have felt the second he saw Mr. Rooney is one to which everyone can relate. It's that "Oh Shit" feeling you get when you think everything is going well then all of the sudden something pops up that completely derails your plans. While the intensity of the emotion certainly varies given the situation, it is a pretty common feeling of everyday life. Take an average night out. You've been talking to a girl all night and it's going pretty well. So, you start a little internal debate. Should you take a stab at it or just see what happens? If you've been drinking, it's pretty much a guarantee you decide you're going to regret it if you don't at least try. You desperately wait for the conversation to go to a place where you can link it to some stupid pick-up line. In the meantime, since you've been thinking about this for the past ten minutes, the conversation has probably become pretty dull as you've been mentally checked out. So, when you finally do attempt your line, odds are it could not come at a more awkward time and it's not gonna fly. The "Oh Shit" feeling comes after you drop the line and notice her facial expression completely changes as she tenses up and looks uncomfortable. You know you blew it. Soon she'll get up and go, leaving you to analyze the whole conversation and think about where you went wrong. Then, the next "Oh Shit" moment comes as you deal with your strike-out by hitting the bar, until you realize you are just seconds from throwing it all back-up. Sports provide perhaps the best examples of the "Oh Shit" moment. In sports, the "Oh Shit" moment happens all of the time. Take football, for example. It's what a quarterback thinks when he holds on to a ball too long and just glimpses a blind side linebacker who is about to pulverize him. It also goes through a running back's head when he cuts outside and realizes the blocking has totally collapsed. It happens in non-contact sports as well. In baseball, a pitcher feels it right after he lets go of a bad pitch. A golfer thinks it immediately after a bad swing that looks like it won't make it over the water. A skier senses it when he catches an edge and knows he's going down. In all of those cases, the players know they are totally screwed, and that they are completely helpless to prevent it.
But the "Oh Shit" moment is one of the things that makes sports great. It's usually the result of a calculated risk and is oftentimes avoidable if the player hadn't been going for it all. As they say, you have to take risks to fail. But you also have to take risks to succeed. If you don't make risky throws you won't throw interceptions, but you also probably won't win your team a Super Bowl. Plus, by far the most exciting players to watch are those are willing to take that risk. A perfect example is Brett Favre, who despite everything else, will never be accused of not going for it. And while Favre has taken heat for his indecisiveness, his willingness to say screw it, and keep bouncing back after throwing more interceptions than any quarterback ever, is impressive.
The best players can always bounce back from an "Oh Shit" moment. They pick themselves back up, trust in their abilities and get right back at it. What doesn't kill sports stars makes them stronger. The same goes for fans. Boston fans have endured Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, Len Bias, Aaron Boone and David Tyree. I don't think any other city comes even remotely close to Boston in terms of enduring "Oh Shit" moments. Seriously, I don't think there's another city in the world where you could just state five names, and everyone would know exactly what moment you were referring to. Yet Boston fans are still there evaery year, and loyal as ever.
So next time you have an "Oh Shit" moment, like striking out with a girl, just remember, it happens to everybody and the best get right back at it. Ron Burgandy sums up this feeling the best in "Anchorman" when, after jumping into the bear pit at the San Diego Zoo, he looks around and says, "I immediately regret this decision." But Ron Burgandy survived, got back in the saddle and went back to being the best anchor "San Diego-uns" have ever known.
