Crowd Control

Watching sports with a crowd can be tough. They can be loud, obnoxious, drunk, belligerent, mentally unstable, schizophrenic, and combustible. I am almost positive I have watched a game with people who have the exact same qualities as I just mentioned (legally, I am not able to talk about a person I may/may not have seen explode at a Nets game in the upper deck). I have no real set of “crowd rules” for the people around me, all I ask is that they:

1) Aren’t yelling in my ear. By all means, be loud, but be an adult.

2) Tell your brat kid to stop kicking my freaking chair. There are few things more annoying in the world, then some 8-year-old kid with ADHD spazzing out beyond you, and having Rockette practice on the back of your chair. When I was 8, I watched the game. I was not going into convulsions because I had not played Call of Duty for 2 hours. Control your kid.

3) Don’t be tall and sit in front of me. Also, cut the afro.

4) No signs, but I guess that goes along with Number 3.

5) If you are drunk, that is okay. Just stop asking me to sing Cotton Eyed Joe with you.

6) If you are above the age of 12 and wearing a baseball glove, I will punch you in the head.

That is really about it. Why I bring up crowds, is because watching sports with family is way tougher. This Monday night, I watched the Steelers versus Bengals game with them. Let me introduce to you the cast of characters:

Mom

Dad

Liam (Brother)

Danny (Brother)

Me

Micaelie (Sister, on computer the whole time, no speaking lines)

Liam and Danny are both in middle school, my dad says whatever comes into his head, and my mom was trying to read one of those Steig Larsson novels, so you get what I am dealing with, right? I am going to give some quotes from what went on during the game:

Pregame:

On Mike Tirico:

Dad: He’s not italian.

Liam: He’s blinking too much.

Dad: Damn it, Liam! Now I am obsessing over that.

Me: It is hard to take Tirico seriously.

On Pregame Ceremonies:

Dad: Are they shooting people on the field. (Apparently, one cannon blast constitutes a Massacre in Cincinnati)

On Ron Jaworski:

Dad: No former player should have glasses like that.

On Geography:

Mom: Where are the Bengals from?

On Time Management:

Dad: They keep saying it is supposed to come on next!

Dan: What time is it supposed to start?

Liam: No habla espanol. (He really said this, I still have no idea why).

Game:

On Numbers:

Dad: How could they give number 88 to someone else. (Number 88 for the Steelers just caused a fumble, but that was not good enough for my dad, a Steelers purist).

On Defense:

Mom: He ran right into him, like he wasn’t afraid.

Me: Good insight, mom.

On Serious Injuries:

Dad: He shouldn’t have ran into him like that, he could have gotten seriously hurt.

Liam: Yeah, he could have gotten back spasms.

On Animal Defecation:

Dad: Have you ever seen squirrel poop?

Liam: Maybe they don’t poop.

Dan: They hide it!

Micaelie: They explode. (Okay, she does have one line)

On Famous Explorers/Centers

Dad: Why did Ponce do that?

Me: Who’s Ponce? Ponce de Leon? It’s Pouncey. (Maurkice Pouncey, Steelers Center)

Mom: Who’s Pouncey?

Dan: What a doofus! (Doofus is the fourth most common word in my family).

On Music

Liam: Special teams are like, rocking!

Dad: Is his name really T-Pain?

Postgame:

All: Zzzzzz

After everyone falling asleep by 9:30, there were no more quotes.

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Sorry for the lack of columns this week, but expect more next week. And better ones than 650 word posts on random quotes.

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