Football game from hell

The last and only professional football game I've ever gone to was to see the Steelers play in Three Rivers Stadium about 12 years ago. A friend invited me to go to the Steelers/Dolphins game this past Monday, so I checked my schedule and said that I'd love to go. What I should have done is checked the weather report first.

Now, if you are a football fan you are aware of the circumstances surrounding this game. It poured rain all day and evening, causing terribly poor conditions at game time and eventually a low final score of Dolphins-0, Steelers-3, Mother Nature-4. So, here was my review of game night.

We started off with dinner near the stadium at a little tavern. The moment we walked outside of the restaurant after dinner, a lightning bolt hit nearby and set off several car alarms, and the rain came down in sheets. We dashed to the car and drove to our planned parking space near the stadium, then sat there as the rain came down and the radio informed us of a game delay due to the lightning. After about twenty minutes the rain slowed, so we ventured out, our bodies wrapped in plastic rain condoms, toward the stadium.

When we got there we learned that attendees had been evacuated from the grandstands and were told to wait in the covered concession area. This would have been fine except that the concession area is not designed to hold all the stadium's attendees at one time. We were packed like sardines, quite literally unable to move. My friends and I happened to be standing by a couple of Salvation Army bell ringer volunteers, one of whom had had just about enough pushing and shoving for one night. He yelled obscenities to the people around him such as "If any one'y'all push me again I'm gonna bust a cap in yo 'lil white ass" and so forth. Nice example of charity work.

At least ten minutes into the start of the game, the crowd finally broke and we were able to make it to our seats. That was after a trip to the bathroom, where I got to witness some dude attempt to revive his drunkenly-comatose girlfriend, or at least lift her off the floor from beneath the mens' room urinal. Why she ended up there I'm not sure. On our way to our seats two paramedics came by the other way pushing a stretcher with a body bag on it. And the body bag was definitely not empty. I still have not found details on that one.

The game was friggin ridiculous. With no points scored until the final 17 seconds, we spent most of the time wondering which one of us was going to be the first to say, "let's go the hell home". We were wet and cold, and the temperature was dropping quickly. the highlight of the game was the punt that hit the ground and sunk like a stone into quicksand given the muddy texture of the field. What a mess.

Some people say this is what being a football fan is all about. I say this is what widescreen plasma TV's are all about.