Baseball Is Life: The Last Time I Saw Them

The Super Bowl is on somewhere in my house because I was searching the TV schedule for the next round of figure skating (in case you were wondering what I do in the off-season… that’s it) and whichever channel the figure skating is on is also hosting the Super Bowl. That is how I watch football these days:  By accident.

I saw, through the end of the liquor bottle I was holding between me and the screen as I walked past it, a mess of Eagles fans. I suppose this means the Eagles are… in it? Near it? WAIT IS THAT FIONA?

The last time I saw such a high concentration of Eagles fans, it was in person, in Florida, in my bachelorette days, when I’d have nights like this:

8:39: Arrival at the bar well in advance of the cover charge. It is not an acceptable night on the town unless one has first stuck it to The Man, The Man in this case being Pat O’Brien’s. LOL, Pat O’Brian’s! We ducked your cover charge! All we paid for was our two-ounce, $10.99 drinks! SUCK-AH!!

8:40: First sighting of woman sporting the latest fashion, Midriff-Baring Shirt Accessorized With Midriff That Really Shouldn’t be Seen in Public.

9:14: My date for the evening, a now-married friend I shall call Flipper, orders beignets, a French for term for “lump of deep-fried lard coated in enough powdered sugar to keep Aspen open on a year-round basis.”

9:22: The Two Pink Leeches arrive. The Pink Leeches are wearing fuschia bras and seem to have left their tops and their skirts and their sensible shoes at home. They have, however, remembered the volumizing mousse.

9:40: “Are these two seats taken?” The bar is beginning to fill, and a male voice has just asked permission to share our table. We look up with expectant smiles, which immediately fall off our faces once we realize that our potential tablemate is well past twice our age, with his well-past-twice-our-age wife at his elbow. Because what we were hoping for, at that point in our lives, was a night out with parents.

10:01: From The Songbook of Songs That Should Never Be Played On a Piano, the dueling piano players launch into “Ice Ice Baby,” originally copyrighted in The Songbook of Songs That Should Never Have Existed At All.

10:30: The Pink Leeches find a group of men to seduce. Their method of seduction is to stagger about, yelling “I AM SO TOTALLY DRUNK!” There are no takers.

10:44: A group of Eagles fans, staying in Orlando because for some reason the nine hotel rooms in Jacksonville could not accommodate the weekend crowd or something, take their seats. It is forty-one degrees outside with winds at twelve miles an hour. They are wearing shorts.

11:07: Because I have not yet reached my sugar quota for the century with the beignets, I order a drink listed as “The Fuzzy Leprechaun,” which consists of orange juice, pineapple juice, blue Cuervo, peach schnapps, and a vat of sucrose.

11:08: The paramedics arrive.

11:24: Flipper points out a couple parked at a table nearby. They are not talking. They are not smiling. They are not singing. They are not touching.

“Worst. Date. Ever,” I suggest.

Flipper shakes her head. “Married,” she says.

11:48: Exit strategy for The Fuzzy Leprechaun.

11:59: One of the Pink Leeches shifts into Seduction Overdrive, attempting to earn alcohol by dancing at a passing male. He shrinks towards the bar.

12:02: Our waiter’s nametag indicates that he is from Cincinnati. “I’M FROM CINCINNATI!!” I scream at him. He gives me an I-don’t-care-face. I give him an at-least-pretend-to-care tip.

12:10: The Eagles fans immediately ensure a loss by waving a small Philadelphia car flag in time to “I Write the Songs.”

12:20: Second exit strategy for The Fuzzy Leprechaun. The Pink Leeches, seeing the need to straighten their nipple rings, are also in the bathroom. They are attempting to determine why no one has picked them up yet. Perhaps if they showed more skin.

12:32: Adjourn to Margaritaville.

12:47: Flipper is asked to dance. She declines.

12:51: The same guy asks Flipper to dance. She declines.

12:51.01: The same guy asks me to dance, because he realizes that what women want is to be approached by a man who has been turned down twice by the woman sitting right next to her. I decline as well, explaining that I have a boyfriend who is a judo instructor with anger issues who recently returned from prison and in possession of a flamethrower and also is standing directly behind him.

1:04: No Clue About Women Man gives up on finding a dance partner and goes it alone. He actually finds a way to move up the Pathetic Chart with his dance method, which is to run in place while imitating a person waving a 747 into the gate.

The guy in the table behind us leans over to me: “And to think, you could have had that.”

1:22: Depart Margaritaville, where I am, once again, the woman to blame.

PRESENT DAY: Please don’t make me be unmarried or in the presence of a high concentration of Eagles fans ever again.