Every spring I watch for the NFL schedule like a fat kid watches a cake in the oven…
The schedule is released in 3 parts: opponents are decided (cake comes out of the oven), home/away is announced (icing) and then finally the dates are made public (get.in.my.belly.)… This year was a slam dunk (wrong sport), this year was a deep ball thrown against the Green Bay secondary…
My boys were coming to DC (well… really Landover, Maryland); Dan’s team hosting my team… what could possibly go wrong?
If football bores you and you want to ‘X’ right outta this blog – I assure you – it’s worth reading til the end (it has a feel-good Thanksgiving-type ending); if I bore you and you wanna ‘X’ right outta knowing me – well that’s just plain mean….
This specific story started with the release of the schedule back in April – I told, er… uh… I mentioned to Dan I might like to go to the game. He, being fairly bright, simply said, “ok.” Fast forward to October 3rd when I told… that is… I asked Dan about going.
LET THE PLANNING BEGIN
Listen, I know my way around planning a game-centric trip. We’ve been to games (NFL, MLB, NHL) in at least 12 different cities – I’m pretty well versed in this stuff. I won’t go into specifics – suffice it to say, hotels near Fedex Field were ‘spensive – I mean rent-a-house-at-the-beach-for-a-week expensive (I’m also extremely well versed in the limits to which I can push Dan Iseminger… I certainly wasn’t ok with the prices but I’m pretty sure Dan’s head would’ve disengaged from his body).
I needed to expand the search area. To that end, I pulled up the DC Metro website and picked a few stops that were easily accessible to hotels and the highway home – Bethesda was perfect; hotel was booked. I also checked run times – it clearly stated no trains would be running at the time we’d be headed back to our hotel, but it even more clearly stated that trains run late for special events.
you already know where this is going, dontcha?
On Friday we enjoyed 78° – at game time on Sunday we were treated to 34° with 20-30 mph sustained winds and gusts greater than 40 mph. I’ve sat through a game (that went into overtime no less) that started at -2° with -24 windchill… I’m no candy ass. Bring it Mother Nature….
We put on our first 3 layers at the hotel and carried the other 2 – nothing is colder than sweaty base layers… ya gotta be smart about it after all.
We walked over to the Metro and bought our tickets. Interestingly enough – we are considered ‘city-folk’ in the rural town we call home; in the DC Metro – we’re the friggin Clampetts (for you millennials, google: ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’). I was thoroughly befuddled by the fare-purchasing situation; Dan didn’t seem at all fazed; I did cause a little confusion by running my jib, he muscled through, though and the next thing you know – we were on our way.
Look – we’re so urban:
We had to switch trains 1/2 way through – there’s 4 college degrees between us so obviously…. we hopped on the wrong effin’ train. I was at least smart enough to question why I was sitting in the very same seat (albeit, on a different train) with us needing to continue in the same direction we had been traveling yet now I was traveling backwards… it took ol’ Elly May here only 2 stops to figure it out (then I had to convince Dan… Mr. You Just Buy The Fare Card And Go, It’s Not That Hard Babe….).
A little bit of swearing, hauling ass and sweating later and we were back on track (ha! see what I did there? back on track – we were on the train… the pun… get it?). An hour of Metro-ing later and we disembarked (I’m gonna be honest here – the only reason we got off at this stop was because every other person wearing NFL shit got off, I thought we wanted the NEXT stop… how I get out of my house everyday unscathed is anybody’s guess).
The stadium is 0.9 miles from the Metro stop. We had walked about 0.4 of those miles when I saw a sign: “The Metro closes at 10:56”.
beautiful
The guys behind us explained that the Metro people want part of the Redskins’ action – Dan Snyder, the owner of the the ‘Skins countered with, “take the extra fares from fans and be happy,” the Metro said, “ok then, we’re closin’ at 10:56 MFer…”
We carried on a conversation with these game-wise guys and they mentioned grabbing an uber. The Uber, while being a fairly new concept, has become a ubiquitous commodity – clearly not a huge need for one in Everett, yet I’m keenly aware of their existence and was excited about using the service (I’m so worldly).
Cool. We decided to figure it out on the fly (we’re chill like that). We got to the stadium at 6:10 and decided to suit up with our final layers. Cal had already donned all he could don – still cold, he looked over longingly at the Packers fleece I was saving for last… I’m not proud to admit I contemplated acting like I didn’t see him – damn it, 34° and 40 mph wind gusts – don’t judge me. Meanwhile, ol’ “it’s not cold ya coupla pansies” was over there layering up like Sybil and her personalities – with no intent, whatsoever, of sharing.
With Cal wearing my sweatshirt, Dan looking like the overdressed brother in ‘A Christmas Story’ and me wondering why I had kids, we set off in search of our seats…
This was at the bottom of section 401 – and while our seats were in section 401, they weren’t actually in this same atmospheric layer. By the time we climbed to our seats I was looking for a sherpa…
About halfway through the 2nd quarter I saw a humungous individual enter our section from the concourse; as he lumbered up the steps I thought, “no way that guy is sitting anywhere but in front of me…” – well…. I was close, look at Cal’s view of the game:
At 10:15 we had to make a decision – Metro or Uber… it was still a game at that point so we decided to tough out the dropping temps and hurricane strength winds (not to mention, the only time I’ve ever left early was during preseason in Pittsburgh when Jordy went down on the 2nd play of the game; further aiding that decision was the 90° temps with 12,042% humidity). We were gonna uber it…
Dan downloaded the app during the 2nd half of the game in between Redskins touchdowns and rubbing my head, saying, “Sorry babe” (if I could’ve felt my hands and gotten the uber thing taken care of myself I’d currently find myself embroiled in a “when’s the last time you heard from Dan” type investigation).
The game turned ugly (for me and the boy) but we continued our (as yet, unsuccessful) quest for national recognition:
PS – these were fun in the wind. But more importantly: how are we constantly overlooked? These signs are funny dammit AND Cal was wearing a homemade shirt AND my hat had blinking Christmas lights… boo NBC… boo
Meanwhile, Cal was breaking my spirit with his whimpering about the hand and foot warmers not working. He asked to feel my hand warmers… Here’s a pretty useful tip: if you are hangin’ with a person who starts to complain about their hand warmers being subpar – just give them the ol’ man-that-totally-sucks look and go on about your business — do not, I repeat DO NOT – let said person check out your perfectly fine hand warmers.
Did I mention that Dan never even took his hand warmers out of the packaging?
Just to recap:
Dan – in possession of all his layers and unused hand/foot warmers, his team winning their asses off
Cal – in possession of all his layers, one of my layers, my hand warmers, his hand and foot warmers, his team losing, but his beloved dad’s team winning
Me – fucked
Eh… over the course of our life together I’m more often than not on the good end of this in-house rivalry and while I was far from happy with the outcome – I not only expected it, but was somehow ok with it (at least nobody got hurt – a la Favre v. Arrington back in ’02… that did not end well for Dan).
Now… to uber.
Dan had read up on the uber situation at Fedex Field in between cheering and mentioning how toasty he was… it seems we needed to be in lot D – easy enough, especially with the “uber ↑” signs. We found a long line of people lined up in lot D – all asking “is this the uber line?” (clearly Clampett’s… all of us). The 3 of us huddled up andDan did the uber app thing, requesting a ride…
A quick primer: you request an uber, accept the rate, it gets charged to your PayPal account then the uber calls and you find each other in a sea of people all trying to do the same thing.
“please accept the rate of 2.7 times the normal rate due to the surge”
(translated: you dumbasses are out in the cold and don’t know what the hell you are doing so we are going to make as much money as possible off you)
Dan hits ‘accept’ because – what other choice do we have?
“you have accepted a rate of $84.35”
…at this point I’m hoping the ambulance will just give us a lift since they’ve spent so much time defibrillating Dan. To put it in perspective – the Metro cost $10.80 total for all 3 of us, it was 13 miles.
The (barely English speaking) uber guy calls – he and Dan go ’round and ’round for easily 10 minutes with neither understanding the other. The uber disconnects the call. We then (serendipitously) discover the uber area – it’s about 1/4 mile further down; we discover this while Dan is running around in search of street signs while in a telephone queue for a cab company. “I’m not talking to anybody, I’m just waiting…”
Meanwhile a girl walks up to us and asks to use a phone – it seems her friends left her behind due to illness and due to her refusal to get into a car with a bunch of drunks; she is not a Clampett – she is an urbanite who’s phone couldn’t handle the cold and shut down in the middle of her own uber call.
She’s quite clearly single because she got wide-eyed when I started yelling at Dan to hang up with the cab company and try uber again (three weeks into her first real relationship she’ll look back and understand it all). “HANG UP! I can see 8,000 uber drivers right in front of us – not picking people up… we’re people… we need to be picked up… WHY ARE YOU STILL HOLDING FOR THE CAB???? DO YOU SEE THOSE CARS SITTING THERE NOT DRIVING PEOPLE ANYWHERE???????”
So Dan hung up and retried the uber app.
“please accept the rate of 4.9 times the normal rate due to the surge”
Now… what you need to know is: Dan is driven by 2 things – frugality and sex… I could sense his personal hell at this point; in an effort to help him along I shouted, “REALLY?!?!?!?”
he hit ‘accept’
“you have accepted a rate of $143.95”
Our eyes met through the gusting wind and the frigid temperatures… I rolled mine – who the hell even questions it? We were minutes from death.
Meanwhile the girl is almost in tears – she’s 24, stuck by herself in a pretty nasty area of town and is beyond thankful that she’s found a family she can trust (although she’s a touch nervous around Dan… ok, ok, maybe it’s my shouting that’s catching her slightly off-guard).
Cal says something about being declined… “what dude?” “It said, ‘card declined’ after you hit ‘accept’.” Dan looked and the page never advanced so he hit ‘accept’ again – Cal was right… our card declined. PayPal locked up because the first uber driver held the charge on our account.
So now… we can’t even call an uber.
good times
I yell at Dan to call a different cab company (by this point – the girl is starting to understand me better). He calls, they tell him they are 2 minutes out… we all start to relax.
In the 25 minutes we stood there waiting…
we learned the girl is from Wisconsin, lives not quite 2 miles from our hotel, works for a lobbyist in the healthcare realm and wanted to know how the Affordable Care Act has affected us so she can take the information back to her boss…
Only if she were the daughter of a member of the Ways and Means committee sitting in a warm bar could it have turned out better…
The cold was biting through me so I had no choice but to yell at Dan to call the cab company again.
He yelled at me, saying I needed to be more patient; he wasn’t calling them…
The cab company told Dan they were having trouble finding drivers.
It was 1am, the streets were clearing out, very few people milling about, it was COLD and I was actually starting to feel like we had no hope… when all the sudden a car which had been idling near us for quite some time, flipped around and asked if we needed a ride.
He was an uber with no fare and offered to take us to both stops for $50 total. The girl paid the entire fee in an effort to thank us for saving her (this one was tough to swallow but I told Dan, I’d hope Alex or Abby would do the same in that situation – let’s be honest… Abby woulda pulled a shiv from her sock hours before and gotten where she needed to be with little to no fanfare).
We had a remarkable conversation with our driver who immigrated from Taiwan with his family when he was 10, is a graduate student studying finance and gave us eye-opening reasons for his pro-Trump stance.
After standing in that weather for 7+ hours it took quite some time to wind down and thaw out. We got ready for bed and all agreed, the 2 hours post-game were rotten, but the night worked out just as it was supposed to – if that original uber had picked us up… if the game had ended differently (with a Pack win, I would’ve sprinted the 13 miles back to our hotel)…. who knows what would’ve happened to that girl; on our drive to our hotel we heard a news report of a shooting only 1 block from where we caught our ride. I keep thinking of that young lady stuck, with no phone, in that area…
Call it whatever you want – kismet, God’s will, luck… we were meant to help that girl, of this I have no doubt.