Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Tuesday Morning Hangover Week 10: In the dark…

By  S. James Hyland - InReeseWeTrust.com 11/16/10
 
This could have been the best weekend of my life.  After going to see my boys of Syracuse take down Rutgers at Rutgers on Saturday (while I sat next to Derrick Coleman… literally next to DC), I was anticipating perhaps a Big Blue win.  This would have to be thrown into the discussion of best weekend of my life. The only 2 things that could possibly come close are the birth of my first son (which hasn’t happened, and I’m not expecting a child… that I know of) and possibly behind that my wedding (which I’m not even engaged, nor am I planning to be).  But it wasn’t to be.  I blame it on the formula not being followed for the Giants.

I can’t be mad at either of the two of you that are actually reading this.  Maybe you have an alcohol problem, maybe you’re allergic to beer, who knows.  Whatever the reason is, you didn’t follow the formula.  Therefore, exo-facto, we lost.  But I’ll be honest, even though we lost, I had an absolute blast at the game.

To start, I took my old man to the game.  My dad, a Cowboy fan, and I pulled in a few hours before the game, I brought a couple of beers for each of us, and we each put those down.  Then we went into the stadium about a half hour before the game, got another few beers, a hot dog, and waited for the game to begin.

Before I go on with the description of the game, I’d like to point out that on Tuesday of this week, my boss at work and I talked about how the Giants were not looking good going into this game.  Anytime a team fires a coach, the new interim coach always brings a spark for at least 3 games.  After that then the team will go back to where they should be.  On the bright side, the ‘boys are so bad, that even if they somehow win out, they’re still only 9-7.

But I digress, back to the game.  So after me and my pops get inside the stadium, we take out seats and watch an absolute shellacking.  The moment when the entire crowd knew that the game was over was the Eli interception in the endzone, which quickly turned into a 101 yard pick 6.  One of the worst feelings in the world as my dad (a Cowboy fan) is high fiving some fat girl next to him (also a ‘boys fan) while I sit in absolute misery.  The only good thing was that the game gave me a great highlight, although it wasn’t on the field.

Before I get into that though, let’s go to the story during halftime, since nothing good happened for Big Blue before then.  I only point this out because of how amazing this was.  My dad and I both had to pee at halftime, so after waiting on a line for about 10 minutes (which is inexcusable for the men’s line) we get in there and there is a smell that can only be described as if someone stepped into horse poop.  It was so awful that every new person who walked in looked at their shoes to see if they stepped into poop.  I bring this story up only because it completely summed up my day as a Giants fan.  When I left the bathroom I had to get 2 more Bud Lights (bringing my total to 8 on the day) just to get that stench out of my nose (side note, I was trying to stay soberish because I was with the old man).   But let’s jump to the 3rd

A few minutes into the 3rd quarter, half the lights in the stadium go out.  My dad looks at me and says, “We’re lucky all the lights didn’t go out because if they did, it’d be about a 15 minute delay.”  We lucked out this time.  The refs decide after about 5 minutes that there is enough light in the stadium to continue. 

So they go a few more minutes, before the entire stadium goes black.  I’ll throw it out there: it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced in my life.  With the exception of a few people holding up cell phones, the entire stadium was black.  I couldn’t see my dad who was sitting next to me it was so dark.  He even got a little freaked out because he didn’t know how they hell we’d get out of there if the lights were down.

There’s nothing more to say about this game, so I’ll end this with this thought: when you’re a Giants fan, and you’re talking about the smell coming from a bathroom and the blackout in the stadium, that means it’s a rough day.  Maybe even a stinky, dark day.

(To end this, I’d also like to point out that you should always be on your guard when the lights go out at a Giants game.  Or else this could happen…

Antrel Rolle Interview on WFAN with Joe and Evan 11/16/10

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Justin Tuck Interview on WFAN with Mike Francesa 11/16/10

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