I've loved all of the videos and stories of how everybody got to celebrate the wildcard birth, I thought I'd share mine:
I left my house with about three minutes left in the Bills game to go to NYE dinner with my Mom, her boyfriend, two of their friends, and my girlfriend. We had reservations at a nice place on Hertel Ave in North Buffalo. A popular NYE spot with tremendous food.
My GF (converted fan and season ticket holder of this year) and I listened to the Bills hold on to defeat the Phins in the car ride over to the restaurant. We got inside and joined the rest of our party at the table. I tucked my phone into my jacket pocket, not wanting to be rude and knowing that any involvement of me watching the Bengals vs. Ravens updates would surely result in cursing the outcome.
Oddly enough, everybody at the table (VERY casual fans) asked what was happening. I whipped out my phone and began with the updates via the ESPN app. After five minutes of this (including the interception that was called back where I declared "its over"), the Bengals had finally found themselves at 4th and 12. Dejected, I gave the phone over to my girlfriend to show her the bad news and for her to keep the phone away from me for the rest of dinner.
Five seconds later, she smiles. She asks me politely to not freak out in front of everybody and hands me the phone back with the screen showing the Bengals Touchdown on the screen. I frantically look around the restaurant to see if anybody else knew. Nope. Nobody knows or seems to care. Except for one guy sitting on the other side of the room from me. As he looked up from his phone in disbelief he saw me with the same look and we just laughed. He raised his glass to me as I did to him.
It was so hard to contain myself. The news eventually spread around the restaurant that the Bills had made it. There were a few laughs and cheers, but nothing close to what I needed to get out.
I probably had too many scotches with dinner, but that's why we have Uber. It was a moment that I'll never forget. Go Bills.