Hat on Top, Coat Below
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I Was Ready for Some Football
December 19, 2004
Eli decided not to come, so I got to go see the Vikings play the Lions this afternoon. I also got to go to a pre-game lunch and a post-game dinner with friends of ours who have season tickets, so I didn’t get much else done today, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. The laundry and mail will still be around for me to deal with tomorrow. I was happy that the Lions play indoors because it was the coldest day of winter so far. I wore long underwear under my jeans anyway, and was glad I did during the walks from the parking deck to the restaurant and the restaurant to the field and back again. Next time I’m going to wear a coat with a hood, too, because just one hat was not quite enough to keep the chill out. What those people with bare heads were thinking, I do not know. Probably “so cold, so cold, so cold”.
We had seats in the corner of the end zone on the Vikings side. Even though we had a great view of the field, I was glad we brought the binoculars, because I used them to study the people in the suites and the action behind the Minnesota bench, where there were two tech guys printing out photos and putting them into binders for the players and coaches. I’d always wondered where those photos came from and now I know. Next I need to find out where the chain crew comes from–are they local? dispatched from an undisclosed location by the NFL each week? are there try-outs to get the job?
Every week, I hope for the Vikings to build a big lead early so I can relax a little, but that didn’t happen. Instead, I got a game that looked for all the world like it was going into overtime when the Lions drove down the field in the last minute and a half with no timeouts and scored a touchdown. All they needed was the extra point to tie it up. I had a tiny hope that the Vikings would block it, but I knew that wasn’t very likely. I didn’t even consider that the Lions would have a bad snap and never get the kick off at all, but that’s exactly what happened. Wow. Still, I didn’t quite believe the win until we recovered the ensuing kick. Whew.
My favorite non-football part of the day was the Dunkin’ Donuts coffee versus bagel versus donut race. This used to be done via animation on the big screen, but now it’s live-action and much more exciting. Sure, maybe it’s scripted like professional wrestling entertainment, but I still got a kick out of seeing the coffee cup knock the bagel aside and run on its bright pink legs to defeat the donut (even though if the donut had won, our section would have gotten a free something at Dunkin’ Donuts). That coffee cup is tough.
