From the Sidelines

Or: In Which cenobyte Does Not Know how to Jeer*
*Otherwise known as ‘trash talk’.

His Nibs is afflicted with some kind of Malady, so unto Yours Truly he bestowethed his teeckets for the football game this weekend past. Yours Truly was very, very giddy. It was, after all, my very first solo football game. Which is to say, the other times I’ve gone to football, it’s been minor football, or I’ve been with chit’l’uns.

So I sat beside The Big Man, who separated his ribs by falling on his own fist (my comment? “Hey! At least you know how to start your own heart if it stops on you!”), thus claiming he “could not cheer properly”. I thought he did JUST FINE.

I taught most of the people in our row the Ladybugs Picnic song to sing for the Roughriders, because sometimes, they don’t count to 12 so good. But we helped them!

And then it became painfully apparent to me that I was doing Something Terribly Wrong.

His Nibs’ seat is right in the front row, beside where the opposition’s kicker warms up, so apparently, they can hear everything we yell at them. This was like waving a red flag in front of cenobyte and saying: “do your worst”. But, unfortunately, I don’t think I’m cut out for trash talking.

I leaned over the railing during a crowd lull, and shouted: “Our Legislative Buildings are much nicer than yours!”
*almost the entire front row stared at me*
“And ours survived a TORNADO! HA!”
*crickets chirped*

I figured that at the very least, one of those players would be all up at the line of scrimmage, getting ready to be creamed across the field, and would suddenly be all, “dude, WHAT did that woman shout? Was she talking about LEGISLATIVE BUILDINGS?” And then miss the play. Which is funny, because Jason Armstead (who, you might remember, used to play for the right team, and now he does not) was talking to a bunch of fans and kind of didn’t hear his coach telling him to get the hell on the field and play the game.

A little later, I leaned over again, and shouted: “My aunt teaches special school in Edmonton! You all probably know her! Mrs. T? Yeah, she sends her regards!”

Which The Big Man thought was kind of funny. But I think he was just being kind to me, really. Sort of in a ‘let’s just amuse the stupid person’ sort of way.

So, just to make sure they’d understood me, because, you know, I’d just called them slow and all, I leaned over and yelled: “I’m insinuating that you’re all a little slow, in case you missed that first thing I said, about my aunt teaching special school in Edmonton, where you’re from! I wasn’t sure if y’all caught on there, owing to your being slow and all!”

And then every time their quarterback screwed up, I would point out to him where he had gone wrong. “Ricky!” I would shout. “I see the problem here! You threw to the WRONG GUY! That guy isn’t even on your TEAM! Your team, buddy, is in WHITE. M’kay?” or “Oh, man, Ricky, you threw to someone who WASN’T EVEN THERE. Dude. I don’t know what they teach you in football school, but my ten-year-old knows that you’re supposed to throw to someone rather than to no one! But keep trying, Ricky!”

I also went on for a few minutes about how everybody says that a couple of inches here and there don’t really make that much of a difference, but on behalf of all of the ladies in the stands, I did say that a couple of inches really does make all the difference in the world (this was, of course, when they were two inches shy of a first down).

Nevertheless, most of the things I shouted just drew confused stares from people.

I think they’re just not ready for my particular brand of awesome.