It was just another Monday. Mundane Monday. We were working the Designated Writers beat out of the central office when my skin rang.

“I think you have the hives,” it said.

Again? I’d had the hives the week before. Allergic to something. Had gone and got medicines and a shot. I would do the same on this fateful day.

It was not until 11:30 am in Ruston that I ran over something. Went back and checked but couldn’t determine what. When I went back I was walking because it had flattened both passenger side tires.

Two tires is good if it’s a bicycle but if it’s an automobile…

While the tire folk came to the rescue–I am silly and carry just one spare–I walked to the gym to interview the back-to-back players of the year, softball, in Conference USA. They were both on a podcast with me. Delightful people. Squeezing this in for the fans on the eve of their Regional appearance in Baton Rouge. But six minutes in to what would have been a 12-minute podcast, my “device” told me it was full. The voice bars kept jumping so i figured it was still recording.

Figured wrong.

There was six minutes of who fans wanted to hear talking, then there was me explaining the rest of what they said — sigh… — although not as eloquently nor as precisely.

Went to get my hives shot and now a month’s-worth of medicine.

Then to get my car.

It would not have been a good day for me to go to the boats. Bad luck. Plus, I might have jumped.

And PS, no matter how bad it gets, don’t jump. The wind is bound to change. I went all though the next day and didn’t even have one single flat.

-30-

Call it karma or the basketball gods at work, but you have to admit that something was at work with the way the NBA Lottery went down Tuesday night.

Let the big market crying begin.

The New Orleans Pelicans, by the far the smallest media market in the NBA, beat the 6 percent odds they had and won the first pick in the upcoming draft. Everyone was talking about New York and Los Angeles being the most desirable and  necessary landing spot for Zion Williamson, but that didn’t happen.

Oops, sorry about that.

After the hosing the Saints took during the NFL playoffs, you’d think that their owner might take a little satisfaction in what happened Tuesday to the next-door neighbor Pelicans, except for the fact that the Pelicans owner IS the Saints owner (Gayle Benson).

It’s great for the Pelicans who, though no fault of their own, got dragged into an absolute mess with the Anthony Davis saga during the year. Davis had a 1 1/2 years left on his contract, but tried to force a trade to Los Angeles and basically wrecked the seasons of two franchises. The Lakers deserved it; the Pelicans didn’t.

But the best part of it all was seeing the reaction of the Knicks’ fans (and media apologists) who thought it was their God-given to have the rights to Williamson. Because why? Because they have been such a well-oiled machine? Because they know how to run a franchise better than anybody else? Might we just point out that the Pelicans have won twice as many playoff series this century than the Knicks have?

Nor should anybody feels sorry for the tanking teams in the NBA teams who cheated their ticket-buying fans by mailing it in, some for the entire year. The teams with the six poorest records all saw their draft position worsen after the ping-pong balls finally dropped.

As they say, be careful what you wish for.