Before Christmas - went to a game. Went into school and gym is dark. checked contract and we had right place and right time. Checked the small gym - it was dark too. After a few phone calls get the AD from the school. Oops - they had a leak onto gym floor causing damage - too much to play on. So the night before they called other school and made arrangements to play there BUT since they didn't think we'd want to travel that far - didn't bother to call officials. They just arranged for another team to do it at other school. I was kind of upset. He was right - I wouldn't have driven to other school on a Tuesday -but it would have been nice not to have driven to the school we were at either (1 hr drive to school we were at - 2.5 to other one - one way.)

You got paid?

Not yet. The AD's not a bad guy. School is REAL tight though - always have been. Lowest game fees around etc. I'm sure he is fighting a battle. He has promised us mileage - and is hoping to get us our game fee too

Two of everything here. My backup stuff for one game is my main stuff for the next.

I've actually thinned down my bag the past few years. I only carry one pair of pants, 2 shirts (one flag and one without), one undershirt, and one pair of tights and a jacket along with some other smaller things (court board, whistles, etc.). I bought an UnderArmour bag that's smaller than the previous one I had and I just pack it anew the morning after each game:

Under Armour Double Deck Wheelbag > Wheeled Duffels > Duffels - eBags

I got this bag for $75 from a surplus store. Good bag, but smaller than I expected.

Why do I need two pair of pants?
 

Got to my JV Boys game in plenty of time, didn't forget any gear... Casually getting dressed while doing pregame - zipping up my pants about 20 minutes prior to tipoff, and the zipper breaks! Oh crap - spent the next 10 minutes trying to get a safety pin to pull the fly together. Ended up working the game with my fly half open. At least I had taken some advice off this forum and was wearing black underarmour shorts. Wish I had taken the rest of the advice and had an extra pair of pants. (Now I do.)

I've considered this, but the bag just isn't big enough and I carried 2 pair for years and never pulled the second pair out.

Maybe a "car bag" is the best middle ground. I could always, in an emergency, make a quick trip to the car.

There are some very serious Freudian ramifications in this statement...Have you considered therapy??

I don't know...is forgetting to bring shoes Freudian for something sinister?

I have started wearing last year's shoes to work on game days. They are conservative enough for my casual engineering environment, and they are more comfortable than my regular work shoes.

Sometimes I go to the gym, shower, then straight work in the morning. One day I forgot to pack shoes for work. I had to break out my old reebok officiating shoes I keep in my spare bag. No one at work seemed to notice.

In a new city this year, so I have no idea where any of the schools are. Luckily the assigning website has (most) schools listed with addresses and a link to Google Maps, which is sweet. So I print out the map and also enter the address into my GPS. When I get to 101 Fubar Street like the site said, there's a big empty piece of land. No school in site. Uh oh. It's already after school hours, so when I call 411 I get the voicemail. Luckily, when you call Verizon 411 they txt msg you the listing, which thankfully had the address, which was 1001 Fubar Street. Crisis averted.

Moral of the story: Never trust your assigning website's addresses. Always look up the school's address on the school's website to verify.

Went with the school's address on their website and almost got burned, as the address on the web was not for the high school. My lesson was to trust the addresses in arbiter.

And for all you military types this is FUBAR! Ouch!!

But now, we have GPS's which will put you in a snow bank for days or run you off a bridge - comforting! :p

I Google Map any new school I'm assigned to make sure it actually exists at that location. I also check my local paper's website (for high school) or the college's website to verify the schedule.

I was once assigned a JuCo game and when I checked the host school's website there was no game scheduled for that date. I informed my assignor and it turned out I was suppose to be ref'n that team at a tournament the next day at a different site.