So I left the Tennessee-Georgia game 2 minutes early to beat traffic...

It’s been a long week.

That’s because I spent last week bragging about my tickets to the Georgia-Tennessee game, which were on the 45 yard line, 18^th row. I’ll tell you how I got them in a minute, but trust me, they were spectacular.

So this week, everybody has been asking me what it was like to have such a great view of two miraculous touchdown bombs, one from each team, in the final 10 seconds of the game.

My answer: “I left the stadium with two minutes remaining.”

And yes, I’m an idiot.

At the time, my reasoning was sound. Georgia had led the entire game, and by as much as 17 points. But with less than three minutes on the clock, the Volunteers took the lead, and about 30 seconds after that, Bulldog quarterback Jacob Eason threw an interception.

As a longtime Vanderbilt fan, I know when a team has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, especially against Tennessee.

I was watching the game with my 16-year-old, Will, and asked him if he was OK leaving. He seemed surprised. If we beat the traffic by even two minutes, I explained, we would get home a couple of hours earlier.

He shrugged yes and followed me out of the stadium.

Neither one of us wanted to leave our seats. Weeks earlier, we’d looked for tickets on StubHub, where nosebleed seats were going for $200 apiece.

Then the week of the game, my oldest son, who’s a freshman at UGA, texted me that his roommate had won two tickets in an online contest. He already had student tickets, so he was offering to sell them to me.

I texted back immediately: “I’ll buy them. Tell him to name a price.”

The reply: “$15 each.”

Thankfully, his roommate was the Page One winner for math, not negotiation.

“Sold,” I texted back. “I’ll bring lunch.”

At the time, we didn’t know the location of the seats. But I figured they’d be pretty good, because the contest was sponsored by AT&T and my son’s roommate had to fill out a W-9 form.

As it turned out, they were better than pretty good. They were the best seats I’ve had to any sporting event, at least since I’ve been a father of four.

So Will and I hated to leave them, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. We joined several thousand other fair-weather fans, crossing the Tate Center veranda and heading up Baxter Street.

That’s when Will turned to me and said, “They’re playing ‘Seven Nation Army.’” That’s the White Stripes song the stadium plays when the Dawgs have the football.

Seconds later, we heard a roar, then car horns honking. Up the street, people were dancing in front of a flat screen mounted on the side of a red-and-black school bus. We sprinted up and watched a replay of Eason firing a 47-yard TD pass to fellow freshman Riley Ridley.

Will shot me a sideways glance. “Thanks, Dad,” he said.

“Sorry,” I said.

We kept walking up the street, then saw another TV in a parking lot and stopped to watch Tennessee’s final desperation heave.

I regret to admit it, but as I watched the ball sail through the air, a part of me wanted the Tennessee player to catch it. I hate the Volunteers, but I also hate disappointing my son. I hate missing raucous celebrations. I hate making stupid decisions.

You know what happened. The Vol caught the ball and Georgia lost. We made great time back to Columbus. I had questions to answer.

And I was feeling, well, existential. The 19-century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard might as well have been there, putting his hand on my shoulder and saying: “My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it – you will regret both.”

I’ll take his word for it.

This story was originally published October 7, 2016 at 10:57 AM with the headline "So I left the Tennessee-Georgia game 2 minutes early to beat traffic...."