Shut Up and Drink Your Beer

My oldest brother's birthday was Sunday. In celebration, we opted to take a family outing of sorts and go to a football game. The Indianapolis Colts to be exact. Now, the stage has to be set, and the characters described to fully appreciate my family going to a sporting event.

Dad, Mom, and the 4 sons. 6 people. Dad looks like a larger version of Old Man Winter, but jollier. Kinda like Santa Claus without the full beard. Not as round though. Loves football. Mom appreciates football, but not fanatical like most of us. Likes to play the pools to try and earn some extra money. Son 1, the eldest, whose birthday it is, is a big sports nut. Plays fantasy football, and drives big trucks. Like, the kind you can't fit into one parking spot. Brother 2 loves football and hockey. Can't get enough of either. He is also an extreme pessimist, or realist, whichever you prefer. Son 3 is Deimos, the writer of the blog you are currently reading. I love football too, and although a gamer at heart, football is a special time of year. Then my youngest brother, Son 4, who would probably ask what inning we were in. Would probably rather be networking or studying, but its a family function, so he came along. Possibility of free food was there. The four sons could not be totally different than the four of us are. And yet, we get along just fine. Its quirky, weird, and works astonishingly well.

I wake up at 8:30 am. Normally, for most people, this is ok. When you go to bed at 3:00 am because you were up late working the night before, 8:30 is a bit harsh. Dad calls a minute after my wife wakes me up. Reminds me to bring a jersey for Mom. Yep, we are on it. The Wife had them all cleaned the day before. I am not one to openly brag about my wife all the time, but she is awesome. Keep that in mind. I hang up the phone and try to not go back to sleep. My son jumps on me to wake me up. That will do it. I stumble around, my lovely wife makes me coffee. Bless her heart, I told you she was awesome. I shower, put on my "ADDAI" jersey, and start pouring my coffee into my little thermos. I grab my wife's "MANNING" jersey and head out to the car.

I get to my parent's house, where we are all meeting, except Son 2, who will meet us for tailgating possibly. We were scheduled to leave at 9:30. Yea right. C'mon now. I got there at 9:30 knowing full well we were not leaving at 9:30. I couldn't have been more right. Mom put on her Manning jersey and we drank coffee for a bit. Son 4 had to run downtown for something. He told us we can pick him up at the campus parking lot. Seemed logical. It was downtown, and not too far from where we were going to be. So, Son 1 came from out of state, and his massive tank was in the driveway.

The truck/tank is an important part of this endeavor. It gets somewhere around 4 miles to the gallon. Its a flat bed, but surprisingly, the cabin is rather spacious for four of us to sit in. Son 1 has GPS, satelite radio, the works. Son 1 bought a portable grill to tailgate out of as well. For his birthday, the Parental Units got him his own Addai jersey.

I also had to jab at Son 1, because he plays Fantasy Football. Fantasy Football is Dungeons and Dragons for jocks who used to make fun of people who played Dungeons and Dragons. Except it doesn't have the cool dice. Fantasy players. Fantasy Teams. Fantasy Games. Fantasy League. Needs more Dragons. I had to whip out my Comic Guy Voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzyd91NFx-Y

We are finally getting ready to leave around 10 or so. Mom has a bad ankle. It practically takes a running start to get into the cabin of the truck because it is so high off the ground. A family effort was required to get Mom into the cabin. We got her in though without using a shepherd's hook. We all get buckled in and Son 1 starts the car. Then, a little black car whips around the corner and stops in front of our driveway. Son 4 has returned. Pansy didn't want to wait in the parking lot alone, so he hurried back home.

I call him a pansy because Son 4 is like, 6'4" and is no longer "scrawny." Thin somewhat, but not scrawny. Most people on that campus would have been scared of him. Not only that, but campus isn't exactly a "ghetto" or anything, so he would have been fine. Pansy.

So Son 4 goes back in and grabs his newly bought Colts jacket. He jumps in his car and leads the way downtown. I call him. The NFL sticker was still on the shoulder of the jacket. Pansy forgot to take off all the stickers. He bought it yesterday. Dork.

We get downtown, which was an adventure because Mom is in the backseat with me, and is generally a nervous passenger. I had to remind her that if anything hit us, it wouldn't survive. We would probably be alright. I mean, I had seen one of these trucks once before, but I think it was at a monster truck rally. The truck was king of the road.

Son 4 drops his car off on campus and jumps into the tank with us. Now, the tank sat 4 comfortably. Not 5. We got a bit cramped back there. Still, better than sardines I guess. We drive over to the stadium, and our day of hilarity begins.

Son 1 is perfectly comfortable paying 40 bucks to tailgate in the parking lot that is right across the street from the stadium. The rest of us are a bit stunned, but he doesn't care, its his birthday dammit. So, the guy taking the money says to follow the dude in the bright green vest.

What needs to be understood about this guy is that he is a total Cletus. I mean, this guy is the stereotypical country bumpkin that you would see at a truckstop. Looks like he would hit on your daughter too. Large, with a southern twang, and had about as much logic in him as a woodpecker. He parks us, and tells Son 1 to back his truck in. Son 1 explains we want to tailgate. Cletus responds with everyone needs to back in.

Say what?

Then he says we can tailgate at the front of the car. Well dumbass, that defeats the purpose of a TAILgate. Using the flatbed of the truck is the whole point of its trip down here. We jump out of the car, and I mean that, because you practically needed a parachute to do so. Son 4 practically wiped out trying to get out of the truck. We start unloading a bit and Cletus comes over and says we can't tailgate there. When we asked why, he said that the part of the parking lot that was coned off was in fact, another parking lot. We said that this arrangement wouldn't do. So then Cletus has us park in another spot, again telling Son 1 to back in.

Fuck that.

Son 1 pulls in so we can actually tailgate. Totally destroys one of the cones in the process. Watching Cletus try to get that unstuck out of the wheel well was priceless. What was also awesome was that Son 1 had no idea he hit it, because he was in another zip code up in the cabin of the truck. So he kept lurching forward while Cletus tried to pull the cone out of the moving wheel well. Awesome.

So, after all this hubbub, Cletus then has the audacity to tell us that he works for tips. Really? What, charging us $40 for the spot isn't payment enough? Fuck you. You are lucky we don't throw our leftover brats at your face. Son 1 told him he could have a hot dog. Thats right bitch. Your tip is you get to wolf down our weiner. Eat it.

We tailgate. We eat burgers, brats, hot dogs. Son 4 and I throw a nerf football around. Dad asks why a nerf? 2 minutes later, Son 4 beans a car with his horribly inaccurate throw. Thats why Son 1 brought a nerf. Son 4 has the athletic ability of a quadriplegic on a horse. Son 2 shows up about 10 minutes before we were going to pack up. Apparently, some dumbass gave him the wrong directions, and he ended up parking on the other side of the stadium. Hiking several city blocks in the wind sucks. He threw on his Addai jersey that his wife told him to bring, and we packed up the tailgate to go inside.

Lucas Oil stadium is pretty nice. After we got padded down we were allowed to enter. That security was a joke. I could have hid a gun in my crotch or anywhere from the waist down for that matter. Apparently, we had seats on the 50 yard line, which was awesome. The bad part? We were four rows from the top. I mean, we were like six stories up. There wasn't a bad seat in the house, but dammit, I almost suffered vertigo getting up that high.

So the game starts. I am sitting by Son 4. Son 2 is next to him. Here is where things go horribly wrong. Son 2 has a curse of sorts. Whenever they go to a sporting event, they sit near "those guys." You know, the annoying ones. The ones that get too loud, or do stupid shit. Now, there are 50-65 thousand people here. There are bound to be some morons. But they always sit by Son 2. This experience was no exception. It seems unfortunate as well, because outside of these two groups of people, everyone else around us seemed cool.

I will start with the guys behind us, who we laughed at the whole game, and I don't think they even knew it. They were the loud and/or obnoxious ones at all times. The main problem was that Son 1, 2 and myself were all wearing Addai jerseys. Addai is pronounced "Ah-die." These fucksticks behind us kept yelling "Ahh-dooooooy" everytime the guy did something, which was often, since he was the running back. Addai for a 2 yard gain. Ahh-dooooooy. Addai for a touchdown. Ahh-doooooooy. Addai is being substituted for the back up runner for this series. Ahh-doooooooy. Pass complete to Addai for a six yard gain. Ahh-doooooooy.

I think they were trying to sound black. They ended up sounding like a chorus of retarded seals with a broken flipper. At least clap like a seal if you are going to sound like one dammit. Then, they tried to get us to join in. "Hey look, a bunch of Ahh-doooooy fans in front of us!" Not one member of our family looked back. I think we each took turns rolling our eyes at each other. I know Dad and I took glances at the other 3 sons sitting between us. Not one of us moved. The general silent concensus from our family was: Shut the Fuck up. I know Son 2 was gritting his teeth and wanted nothing more than to punch those bastards in the face. He showed tremendous restraint though.

Then there were the two ignorant bastards in front of us. They were presumably married, and if they ever have kids, that child would probably be shot just on principle of trying to preserve what is left of the gene pool. The wife at like horse at a trough, and never stood up once, even for the big plays. She probably missed over half the game. Her douchebag husband was that guy on the phone the entire game. He also brought binoculars. Cute. He then loudly shouted into his phone trying to find a couple of his "friends" who were located at various points all over the stadium. He spend a vast majority of the game looking at the stands! Who gives a shit?! Watch the damn game. You paid over $100.00 a shot for these tickets, watch the game! If you wanted to be with your friends to watch the game, stay at home! At least then your wife won't overpay for the food! The worst was in the 4th quarter. The visitors are lined up for a fourth down deep in our territory. The hopes of them winning rest on this play, and Fuckhead in front of us is looking for his buddy. Jesus Christ! That is almost as bad as you standing your fat ass up early in the third quarter while we are trying to watch the game just so you could locate your buddy 5 rows behind you. Sit your fat ass down!

But wait, there is more. When we finally sealed the game with about four minutes to go, in front of these bastards sat 3 of the visitor's fans. They calmly got up, and began walking out, as the outcome had been all but foretold. These three guys were rooting for the other team to be sure, but they were at least cool about it. They didn't jab or mock. They didn't scream at the home team's fans, or start fights, or drink too much. They watched the game, they rooted for their team in a respectable fashion. Then, these two bastards who haven't been watcing the game practically flog them as they are leaving. What the hell? If you can tell me who has scored any of our three touchdowns, I will buy you bastards the next jumbo popcorn you inhale. I am glad I didn't offer that bet. Everyone on our side of the stadium knew that Ahh-dooooooy had scored at least once, possibly even eight times at that point.

Of course, there are other morons at the stadium that you don't sit next to. You know the ones. They appear on the jumbo tron. Perfectly normal people sitting there watching a game. Then, they see themselves on the jumbo tron and go crazy, hooting, hollering, and waving their arms like anyone gives a shit. The worst is when they are in the middle of a conversation, and the guy next to them taps them on the shoulder to tell them they are on TV, and then they go crazy anyways. The person they are having the conversation with is probably less than thrilled.

And then the flood of advertisements throughout the game. Jesus Christ its horrible. At least at home you have the mute button. You can get up and grab a drink while the ads are on. There is no escape from them. And, just for the record, unless you are the people involved with the little advertising promo, not one damn person in that stadium gives a rat's ass about the "High Five Crew" or the "Edy's Ice Cream Fan of the Game." They don't give a shit about the "State Farm Luxury Box" or the "I got these seats at a Speedway section." Except for the dipshit in front of us, we came here to watch the damned game.

Also, being at the game is different than at TV. During those ads, you get a drink, come back, game on. At the stadium, you have players standing around waiting for the cue to go. Its a total break in momentum. You also don't have the play clock in the lower corner, the scores of other games up top, and most importantly, you don't have the "yellow line" to see where the first down is at. You have to eyeball it, which is difficult six stories up.

One more thing about the stadium. The guy running the jumbo tron sucks. There were about 10 plays that we wanted to see on the jumbo tron. Close calls, good hits, or not called penalites. We saw about 30% of what we wanted to from the replay. That is a very low percentage given the lack of hurry up offense in the game.

The game was fun, and the Colts won. For the people sitting in front and behind us though, you fuckers need to...Shut Up and Drink Your Beer!

-Deimos