Exceedingly Mundane

Tim and I went to our first NFL preseason game last night, the Saints vs the Colts. I had wanted to leave a couple of hours before the game, but Tim had played golf with Don, and we all went to eat a late lunch/early supper after the guys finished. By the time we got home and changed, it was much later than I wanted to leave. Tim thought we would be fine, after all, it’s just 15 or 20 minutes to the stadium from our house. WRONG.

Our little city’s highways are apparently not equipped to handle the traffic for a game like that, nor was the stadium and personnel equipped to handle that many people converging on one small space in a short time frame. The traffic on the interstate was a nightmare. People were backed up for miles on the two main exits to the stadium. Luckily, the stadium is near where I went to college and I had Tim go to a further exit, then we backtracked through some back streets and a neighborhood near my alma mater. As we neared my old stomping grounds, I said “gee, they must be having a game or event too, look at all the people”. Tim smiled patiently at me and said “no, sweetheart, these people are going to the Saints game too”. “NO! I said, the stadium is a mile or two from here!”. Wrong I was. People were parking miles away and walking in. We did the same, and before we were a few blocks from the car, the rain started. We had brought some light ponchos, but got soaked nonetheless trying to get them on. Our clothes were soaked, and the stadium seats we had brought to sit on. I had left my camera behind, as well as our umbrellas, after I reviewed a list of “prohibited” items on a local website. Apparently, not everyone read this same list.

We hiked in, and then soon realized that people were massed in two large groups at the stadium, one on the east side and one on the west side. We found out later that only TWO gates were open to handle the 60,000 people. What a nightmare. We were in a massive throng of miserable people. There were lots of reports of Security patting people down, but we didn’t see any of that. What we did see were huge piles of bottles and cans near the entrance that the Security people made people throw down. The same with umbrellas. I probably saw 150-200 umbrellas in piles strewn all over the entrance. I didn’t see any cameras confiscated, but then again, I didn’t see them confiscating backpacks and other things that the paper had said was prohibited. Anyway, it took us a long time to get in. We were some of the lucky ones, we got in before the first quarter was half over. The rest of the unlucky ones were still streaming in all the way to half time.

We found our seats, and realized some nice guys had taken them. Once we covered that we had tickets for that section and those seats, they sort of moved down. Not two full spaces, but they moved a little. Not enough room for us to set up our stadium seats. We barely squeezed in and Tim was half hanging out over the steps (he was in seat 1 on our row, I was in seat 2). We spent the entire time shifting – if he leaned forward, I had to lean backwards. If he sat back, I had to lean forwards. There wasn’t enough room for us to sit shoulder to shoulder.

It didn’t rain again, and thankfully stayed overcast and it was actually almost pleasant. We were up high enough that we got a bit of a cool breeze and it was not that hot – especially not compared to the 98º heat we endured when we went to training camp. We didn’t have great seats and we didn’t see a lot of what was going on. We had a guy who kept jumping up in front of us and we missed a bunch of the plays.

All in all, Tim said he had fun, so that’s all that counts. Me, I think I’m much happier at home on the couch, in front of our new big screen. I don’t have people sitting in my seat, sloshing beer around and blocking my view. But that’s just me and I did have a good time. Mostly, we wanted to support the team. So we did. And I’m glad we went. I asked him if he would want to go in the future and he said probably; he wants to support them. After what we endured though, and the backlash I read in today’s paper, I seriously doubt if our little city will ever host another preseason game again. It was all poorly handled and I don’t imagine the NFL or the Saints would want to risk that happening again. Which is a shame, really.

I didn’t take my camera because it was on the prohibited list. I probably could have; I saw other people with them, and a lot of other things that they said were prohibited. But, it would have gotten in the deluge when we first arrived, and I’m really glad I didn’t take it and chance getting it wet. I tried to take a few pictures with Tim’s cameraphone, but with the lights and distance, they didn’t come out that great (as I expected). I’ll post them below though, just to show them 🙂