Sunday night I attended a Professional Football Game on purpose. I am pretty jealous of how these nerds celebrate their beloved team and attending a live event brought me a little bit closer to understanding their culture.
While the game itself was pretty entertaining, highlights included a camera that can fly and a real live horse named Thunder. My favorite part is when, in between innings (?) the camera zooms in on the nerds in the stadium seats; I like to watch them dance or yawn and I like it when they suddenly look up and notice that their yawning or dancing was just broadcasted to the entire stadium. I like it when they realize this a fraction of a second before the screen switches to some other nerd and they only have a fraction of a second to wave.
Here are some things I heard because they were shouted near my ear by people who were actually pretty sober:
In response to a play (I do not know how to be more specific.):
“IT’S A HUGE HOLE OH MY GOSH THAT HOLE IS HUGE I CAN SEE IT FROM HERE IT’S A HUGE HOLE GET IN THERE OH MY GOD GET IN THE HOLE!”
(I do not know what this means.)
When a tie happened and then overtime happened:
“no no no a tie is like kissing your sister oh no oh no”
(I do not know what this means.)
Shouted as if it was an actual suggestion when Number Ten got a touchdown:
“NUMBER TEN YOU HAVE TO WORK ON YOUR TOUCHDOWN DANCE YOUR TOUCHDOWN DANCE IS TERRIBLE!”
A blossoming friendship:
Man in orange jersey: Dude! Man! Yes, you! WHERE did you get that jersey?!
Other man in a similar orange jersey: oh man! Dude! This website--it's like Amazon but in CHINA! TWENTY DOLLARS for this jersey!
Man in orange jersey: WHAT THE HELL NO WAY NO WAY FOR TWENTY DOLLARS OH MY GOSH I AM LOSING MY GODDAMN MIND. (presses hands to face) TWENTY DOLLARS… (adds url to “notes” app on iPhone.)
I'm aware that these are probably pretty regular things to overhear at a professional football game, but this was the first one I went to so it was new for me. The whole ordeal is so passionate.
I've always been a little jealous of the way people bond over the game the next morning, so when my (very attractive) dentist and his (also pretty attractive) assistant started talking about last night's game I thought "this is your moment. you were at the game. you can have input in this sports conversation." But it was not my moment because the giant man-hands of my dentist and the also large man-hands of his assistant were in my tiny mouth covered in my bloody saliva and my lips were numb and I could not make a single noise about the sports game until they were done, but do you know what? Even though the moment had passed, I brought it up as soon as they removed their hands and took the cotton balls out of my cheeks and we talked about the sports game as one talks about the dry weather we're having and for a moment I felt like I belonged to something bigger and it was excellent.