Mini-stories from last weekend's College World Series trip, my first successful one in three attempts:
>> You can't go to the CWS and not cheer for somebody, so in the past, we've picked a random team and half-ass supported them. But this year we upped the ante, actually purchasing TCU gear to wear all day long. We quickly learned the Horned Frog hand symbol and we were all set. Besides the fun that goes along with fanatically cheering for a team without being able to name a single player, there was the added benefit of getting free food from a TCU tailgate simply because I was decked out in their colors (and I may have told the guy that my parents were TCU grads, but I'm pretty sure he was gonna give me the sausage & peppers hoagie anyway.)
MyShawn, me, Gangel, and Addy. We were all solid competitors this weekend, but the MVP has to go to MyShawn. Worked until 11 pm Friday night, drove 6.5 hours from Grand Forks to Omaha, pulled up to Gangel's place five minutes before we left for tailgating, boozed all day on 0 hours of sleep, caught an hour long nap at the end of the afternoon, then boozed all night. (While also still being coherent enough to drop the prototypical MyShawn lines, such as "Play it as it lies or get off the beach" in reference to an Omaha girl pulling some shenanigans. I would do a top 5 list of the most random/hilarious/what the fuck does that mean? MyShawn quotes of all time, but there would be like 20 honorable mentions.)
>> We went to McDonald's for dinner after tailgating (class class class) and it was the weirdest Mickey D's I've ever seen. I don't like to drop the r-bomb, but seriously, every person in that place was retarded. One guy saw our TCU gear, looked over at his companion (wife? mom? She was too busy staring into space/not being sane to register anything anyway) and confidently stated: "Baseball." So this collection of people- you couldn't tell if they were together or not; they were all sitting at separate tables, but I'd be shocked if they weren't all at the same party somehow- are hitting us with questions about the TCU game all through our dinner. However, since we were too busy bombarding the girl who tagged along with us with questions about how she banged (Sportscenter anchorman) Steve Levy in Vegas, we didn't realize until the end of the conversation that all these 'special' people thought we were actually on the team. Which totally makes sense.
>> I'm assuming by now, everyone knows what vuvuzelas are (although I still haven't heard the same pronounciation twice, and lord knows I don't know how to say it.)
Anyway, Addy has an app for his phone that allows him to play a sampling of vuvuzelas, which led to some laughs initially. THEN, we figured out we could plug it into my car speakers and jack the volume up, and hilarity ensued. We were in separate cars in the Taco Bell drive-thru Friday night, and right as Gangel, in the car in front of us, was about to give his order, we blasted him with some full volume vuvuzelas, and he had to get out of his car and walk around because he was laughing so hard. I was still crying laughing when it was our turn to order two minutes later (which is why I panicked and got two crunchwrap supremes, instead of getting just one and then mixing in some cheesy gordita crunches. Two crunchwrap supremes back-to-back are just gross. Don't do it.) We incorporated the vuvuzelas every hour or so during tailgating the next day, always bringing the same reaction from every tailgater in a 200 yard radius: two or three seconds of confused staring at us, realization and raucous laughter for about 20 seconds, then a batch of annoyed "wrap it up, douchebags, it's not funny anymore" glares in our direction.
>> Remember last year, when I complained that buying cigars for an underaged kid should've given us good karma, and it wasn't fair that Gangel and I got thrown out so fast? Well, the Karma Gods waited an entire calendar year to pay us back....but they paid us back in a HUGE way. I won't get into a lot of detail because of the sensitive nature of the internet, but let's just say it rhymes with "schmiraculously schmavoided schmaDUI."
OK, just a little bit of detail: as we're pulled over after 17 hours of drinking, and the cops are walking up to the car, this classic exchange takes place:
Emily: "Are we gonna be OK?"
MyShawn: "We will be.....(driver's name redacted) is pretty fucked."
And just when our collective sphincters couldn't get any tighter, the cops pulled a 180, jumped back in their car, idled up next to us and told us to have a good night, and took off at 80mph with cherries flying, followed by about six or seven other cop cars within the next couple minutes. So to whomever got stabbed/shot/murdered in that exact 15-second window before the cops got to our car....I mean, that sucks, I feel bad for you.....but DAMN you saved our asses.
So similar to Lloyd Christmas trading in the Shaggin' Wagon for a moped, Omaha TOTALLY redeems itself!!! The karma has been repaid.
(Also, Erin Andrews was there. Just knowing I'm within three states of her gives me a parsh, so you can imagine what it's like when we're in the same city. Love you, boo.)