You know how sometimes, even when you know something probably won't be that great, you still have this curiosity inside of you that makes you show up and experience it first hand? Well that was me last Sunday.
The pros and cons of the situation weighed heavily in the favor of not showing up. I mean just check out the negatives.
United wasn't playing.
None of my friends were going with me - and when I say friends I mean friends that I didn't meet through DC United/Barra Brava.
I couldn't drink because I had a game at 2:30pm. This would mark only the second time I have been to United game and stayed off the sauce. The last time was in 2004 and the home opener fell during Lent. I gave up alcohol that year for Lent. Lost about 8 pounds in 40 days. Weird.
The game was at noon so the tailgate was super early - think 8am.
The positives were that I could see some of the guys I won't be seeing until March and support Duff's Breast Cancer Raffle. The bed of my truck turned out to serve as the stage for this event.
So I get to Safeway at about 7:30am and I'm out of there in a flash. It was great. I spent about, oh, I don't know, $80 less than I usually do for a tailgate - now that's something I could get used to!
Roll into Lot 8 at about 8:30 and I'm the second truck in the Barra section. The other truck is some guy I don't know so I grab my iPod and go for a little walk. I mean it's not like I had anything to set up. All I had on me was doughnuts, Gatorade, and some tortillas.
So I'm walking along the Anacostia listening to the playlist I talked about in my last blog and just checking out what some of the real early tailgaters are up to. I was also thinking about how my friends and I used to hang out in those spots years ago. I get to the end and I'm going to make my way towards the Eagles/Supporters tailgate and head up towards the stadium when I first get that feeling. That feeling of bitterness/jealousy reared its ugly head. A huge bus of Houston fans rolled in and began to unload all of their stuff and I got salty.
Making matters worse, they had dudes wearing "the uniform". Guys around the ages of me and my friends with their jerseys and camo shorts. I mean c'mon. Is nothing sacred anymore??? That is the official uniform of the KP/LB chapter of La Barra Brava. That was a real shot to the ol' solar plexus. No respect at all. Just showing up in our house like that. At that very moment I was seriously surprised not to see a bunch of my old girlfriends with them playing a rousing game of "How hard can you kick Rocky".
I quickly sent a text to Mike Terry telling him that he had better get there soon because I already hated it.
Mike got there and we made our world famous breakfast burritos. Everybody had the same sort of look to them. The "Hey what's up man, nice to see you, this is weird, what are we really doing here" look was all over the place. Usually you associate that particular spot with all kinds of craziness. Not so much this time. Just some moderate drinking, a few random grills going, and zero excitement for the game. The raffled raised a bunch of money for a great cause - of course I didn't win anything.
I actually had two game tickets from a girl at work that I was going to try and sell for her since I wasn't going to the game. I tried for about 20 minutes but as I expected, it was a major buyers market. Tons of United fans were stuck with tickets so it wasn't that great. I seriously couldn't give them away for free.
I'm glad that is all behind us. Its a short offseason for United so no need to worry.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I hope everybody has a wonderful holiday. Please don't worry about going back for seconds or thirds - especially when it comes to PUMPKIN PIE. How good is that dessert? Just typing that makes me hungry.
Should be a great weekend followed closely by a mid week trip down to Norfolk. I have some unfinished business with ODU I need to get out of my system. More on that next time...
lateR brah
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