And then we come to Omaha, which has now straight up kicked my ass. Twice.
The day started off with a good deed: buying cigars for a 16-year-old who approached Gangel and I in a gas station parking lot. I've always been a big believer in the "Circle of Life" theory when it comes to contributing to minors: we have an obligation- nay, a responsbility- to help out kids in need of tobacco/alcohol. If older kids wouldn't have bought anything for us when we were youngsters, then where would we be today? I shudder to think of a world where you could never drink until you're actually 21. So I figure that by helping out this fine young citizen right away, we're setting ourselves up for some good karma later on. Aligning our chi, if you will.
Wow was I wrong.
Here was our basic game plan: since we were just a two-man party, Gangel and I would go to Rosenblatt Stadium during the 1 o'clock game, drink for a little bit, make some friends, join their tailgate, and then go to the 6 o'clock game.
So we stroll on in to the tailgate area, smiles on our faces, dreams in our hearts. Almost immediately, a security guard tells us to leave the property. APPARENTLY (it would've been nice to get this memo earlier) you can't just stroll around with an open case of beer. You need a cooler, and you need coozies on your cans, because the NCAA doesn't want to promote drinking at these events. I had to strain to hear the security guard tell us this, because there were SO MANY PEOPLE AROUND US DRINKING THEIR FACES OFF.
So with spirits slightly tarnished, we figure fine, we'll just avoid this security guard, go find a quiet spot for a little bit, regroup, and we'll just have to make friends a little bit faster in order to crash a tailgate. We walk to a completely different area, hoping to be out of this guard's "jurisdiction." We find a nice little unclaimed shaded area and commence with two of my favorite activities: sitting and drinking. After 3 minutes of pure bliss, the security guard (who apparently followed us) is back, and now he's pissed. He is a hot little potato. Soon we're being escorted off the premises, because, and I quote, we weren't "committed to a particular vehicle." So, to recap, as long as you are standing next to a car of some sort, apparently you can take your shirt off; shotgun beers; throw beanbags, footballs, baseballs, and other objects; have beer-bonging races; and sexually harass every female who walks by. BUT, if you're sitting quietly under a tree and conversing, but your beer is not in a cooler and you're not sitting next to your own car, you're public enemy #1.
So, after a grand total of 20 minutes inside the parking lot, we've been kicked out twice, red-flagged by security (we quickly began calling ourselves "Ocean's Two") and now we're drinking across the street from the stadium, sitting on a tree stump and crushing beers as if they were sitting in the sun and getting warmer by the minute (oh wait...)
Here's a surveillance photo of Gangel and I watching the festivities from across the street after being red-flagged by security. It was pretty warm in the tailor-made Italian suits. Uncomfortably warm, really.
Getting kicked out started a butterfly effect: we don't sneak back in until 5 minutes before game time, so we don't have tickets yet, and the scalpers only have general admission seats left, and we don't see the line to get into the game is halfway around the stadium, and we don't realize that there is no way we're getting into this game before the seats fill up, so we unsuccessfully try to sell our $10 GA tickets, and shortly thereafter leave the stadium for good, without having attended the game. Awesome.
Neither one of us cared too much about missing the game, as we were all about the tailgating, and we're not really college baseball fans at all. The highlight for us was going to be pretending we were from Charlottesville, Virginia and talking crap to all the diehard LSU fans, and it's a shame we missed that. Also, it's somewhat embarassing to drive 3 hours for the College World Series, show up to the stadium 5 hours early, and not end up at the game.
Being the gamesmen that we are, we quickly shook it off, went bar-hopping, went to a house party, and ended up with a solid 15-hour day of drinking. So even though I stayed in control the entire time this year (a far cry from last year, when I actually deserved to get thrown out and didn't) Omaha still found a way to win. Again. I thought I was starting with a clean slate and establishing good karma at the beginning of my day; apparently Omaha still needed to repay my karma debt from last year. It's just a shame that Gangel had to get taken down with me. Like a guy who accidentally witnesses a mob hit, and therefore has to be killed too.
Some mini-stories from throughout the day:
>> While walking back to our car, which was parked in a residential neighborhood about a mile away from the stadium, we quickly grew bored with the walk, and started looking for a shortcut. We encountered a pack of Mexican kids who were out riding bikes, so we asked if there were any hidden shortcuts through backyards. They eagerly agreed to help us. So picture this scene: Gangel, myself, and a horde of 8-year-old Mexicans running through backyards, searching for trails in the woods, as I run alongside them yelling "Vamanos children! Vamanos!" and Gangel walks slightly behind us, asking "How many more menudos? We need to get to our car ahora!"
After we determined that we didn't want to chance the 15-foot drop that we would've needed to jump in order for it to be a shortcut, one of the kids suggested we just take the street that wraps around the hill, and offered to let me use his bicycle. So here is my favorite part of the day, and maybe my year so far: me, 15 beers deep, flying down a giant hill on a tiny bicycle with a 2nd-grader riding on the pegs, yelling in my ear "Oh, I forgot to tell you, this bike doesn't really have any brakes!" That's where my day peaked.
>> Here's a lesson to you girls, courtesy of some random girl from Santa Cruz (which is considered NorCal, not SoCal, and CERTAINLY NOT NoCal....she made sure we knew the differences) that we met while bellied up and watching the Virginia/LSU game at the bar. If you meet strangers and you're striking up a convo, sometimes it's kinda cool to play the girl-with-an-attitude role, where your entire conversation is carried on with a feisty tone, and you have some good banter back and forth. It starts out fun, but you shouldn't play that game for longer than like 15 minutes. At some point you need to start acting normally, or else the conversation ends up like this:
NorCal girl, coming back from the bathroom: What happened? LSU is up four runs now!
Gangel: Yeah, they hit a 2-run bomb while you were gone.
NorCal: Oh really? Do you really have to use your baseball lingo on me? Wow, you guys are soooo cool...
Gangel and I exchange amused looks: What lingo? What the hell are you talking about?
NorCal: Bombs. You don't have to call them that, you know. Just say they hit a homerun. Seriously, you guys are ridiculous. (this is where I snap, as she has now called us ridiculous like 30 times)
Me: Can you please change spots with your friend?
NorCal, laughing: Are you serious?
Me: Yes, I'm serious. Maybe she's not such an angry bitch all the time.
She looked at us with a stunned face, changed spots with her friend, we didn't talk to NorCal again the rest the night, annnnnnd scene. Her friend was cool though.
>> While in the bathroom at the bar we went to downtown, some dude at the urinal next to me suddenly yelled out, while peeing, "Send it IN, Jerome!" This is one of my favorite Bill Raftery lines of all time, and we spent the rest of our time in the bathroom yelling out Raftery quotes, and by the time we came out, we were practically in hysterics, high-fiving and laughing like we were old friends. I had never heard anybody else yell that in public before (besides Jud, the co-founder of the Bill Raftery Fan Club, along with myself) and especially not while peeing...but you better believe I'm gonna start now. That's how quickly two random dudes can bond in the bathroom together. No homo.
>> It was only a one day trip, so I brought a little bag with a change of clothes, some toiletries, and my phone charger. We left for the stadium shortly after I got to town, and we ended up crashing at Gangel's friend Nicole's place that night. (Great hostess by the way, especially considering that within 5 minutes of getting to her place, she walked into her bedroom to find Gangel and I standing by her bed, not talking, just dominating a bunch of Volcano Tacos and Cheesy Gorditas. I know girls who would've reacted less favorably.) The next morning we made it back to Gangel's, and I just grabbed my bag and decided to drive home without showering or putting on deodorant or anything. The point is: I unpacked one thing from my bag- one frickin' thing: my phone charger. Annnnnd I left it there. FML.
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