There are many things for which I am grateful that I didn't get to blog about yesterday, mainly because they hadn't happened yet. Heh. So here is my mega-thankful list as of this ungodly hour of the morning (I've been up since 7:00, if you believe it!):
1. Sudden Chiefs tickets. Those
rule.
2. Having a Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving when I hadn't expected anything until the weekend and had already had one Thanksgiving dinner last weekend.
3. Arrowhead. 'Nuff said.
4. Chiefs fans. We rule, folks. Hands down.
5. Asshats. I will explain. Gimme time.
6. Seeing John Fogerty live in concert for the halftime show. Wow. I mean, wow.
Fortunate Son alone was worth driving all the way to KC for.
7. Rooting and laughing with total strangers in a strangely homey, family-like environment while our boys scramble for a 19-10 win against division rivals to put us above the Flaming-Maned Ass Ponies in the division for the first time in a long time. We might...
might...still nab a wild-card slot folks. No lie.
8. Screaming for 3 ½ hours straight with only one beer and one Coke to soften the blow and still having enough voice left to woot a few times through the parking lot.
9. Telling everyone you come across that you're squeaky-hoarse because you screamed for 3 ½ hours straight at the Chiefs game on Thanksgiving and watching their expressions.
10. Nose-bleed section seats. Seriously. Those are where the dedicated few/many sit.
11. The long drive home during which you get to laugh about the heckling and the jokes and the good plays and the bad calls.
Yes. I had a good time. Not only is Arrowhead Stadium one of my favorite places to be, but we also sat in the fun section. Who knew?
Seriously. So this couple is sitting a few rows down in Broncos gear. I'm not talking just a jersey and a ball cap. The woman's wearing the fake dreads in Broncos colors. The guy...is wearing a foam horse-head on his head. Both painted their faces.
I think you can probably see where this is going, but I'll tell you anyway because it cracks me up.
So, various Chiefs afficionados have dubbed our stalwart opponents The Donkeys, right? They're horses. It's not that big a jump. And an even shorter jump is from Donkeys to Asses, of course.
Now, if you were a Chiefs fan at Denver, you can expect to get beat up for a whole lot less than rooting for your boys. However, at Arrowhead, you're more likely to get heckled a lot and maybe get a beer "accidentally" spilled on you. Why not? I mean, you're pretty likely to get a beer acciddentally spilled on you even as a Chiefs fan.
So, the Horse Head is a few rows down, and some good-naturedly rowdy boys (probably 25-ish in age) are sitting right behind him and his nag...errrr..girl. Needless to say, the heckling started before the game even did. It took about 3 minutes of playing time to hit the Ass epithet.
It took until halftime for Horse Head to threaten to call Security. All over a few heckles. Not even particularly
damaging heckling. At St. Louis, one of those 25-something hecklers was called a child molester, for God's sake.
This guy was just called an Ass. And by the way he was acting, he deserved it.
Anyway, so it didn't take long for the whole section to find out about Horse Head's threat. It took even less time for the entire section to come to the boys' aid and heckle hard-core. Cries of "Mama! Save me, Mama!" and "Uh-oh, he's biting his lip! Better shut up or he'll call Security!" were almost as frequent as the screams for DEFENSE! and SACK THAT SUMBITCH!
At some point, I pointed out that Ass is a technical term, even Biblical if you wanted to go that far. The boys agreed whole-heartedly. After all, we were dealing with one hell of a Jackass.
It was beautiful.
And about halfway through the third quarter, it hit me. The Horse Head. I leaned over, whacked Dad on the arm, and hollered over the crowd noise, "Hey! I just thought of something! Wouldn't the technical term for that particular headgear be Ass Hat?"
The boys heard it. Horse Head was Ass Hat for the rest of the game.
*bows*
Needless to say, Security wasn't called, though Event Staff did walk by. The heckling never came even close to a fight -- mostly because the boys were just goofing around with no truly mean intent and because Ass Hat was a total wuss who couldn't put up with a little jackassery in return. We all had a good time...except perhaps for Ass Hat.
Happy Thanksgiving, indeed. Good times, folks. Good times.
Oh, and a quote from an NFL.com
recap article that just makes me happy:
Making the night even more festive was an in-house standing-room-only crowd of 80,866, the largest since 1972, the year the Chiefs opened the facility that many call the loudest outdoor stadium in the league.
"Our fans were awesome," Chiefs defensive end Jared Allen said. "We took energy from them all night."