. . . to talk about the horror that was last week's UNLV/UNR game.
It took almost a week to come to terms with what a big barrel of suck it was. And I'm not really talking about the 31-3 thrashing UNLV experienced on our home field. I expected to lose to UNR. I'd been in Reno the week before to watch them dominate Northwestern. Seeing that game live and in person was all the convincing I needed that UNR had the superior team.
But, being the masochist and mildly guilty alum I am, I decided to buy tickets and go. They were 30 bucks apiece, with no discount for kids under 12. Or kids at all, for that matter. My 8-year-old's ticket cost the same as mine.
Fine. What-frickin'-ever. So I got on the freeway and headed out to the stadium at about 5 last Saturday. The game was at 7. Two miles from the exit, the freeway came to a standstill. Some car, which had once been on fire, was sitting on the shoulder. That smoldering wreck was enough to get the looky-loos to slam on their brakes. Cripes.
From there, it took 20 minutes to get from the freeway to within sight of the stadium. That's easily three times what it would normally be. From that point, it was another hour. Another hour to go one mile. My son was in the back, and God love him, he knew better than to ask when we were going to get there.
At kickoff, I wasn't even parked yet. As I, fed up, pulled out of line and drove by one of TWO stadium entrances, I noticed that one guy in an orange vest was directing traffic: six lines of cars trying to jam into one entrance. Good Lord. I couldn't get into the other entrance because NOBODY was directing traffic there. And of course, nobody was going to let me in. "Nice" had officially taken a powder out on the streets outside the Silver Bowl.
Fifteen minutes later, I found a parking spot on a patch of dirt about a half-mile away. Two-plus hours after I left my house, Conor and I began walking to the stadium.
That's when the fun really started.
I wasn't surprised to see thousands of people milling around. The UNLV/UNR game is the big state rivalry. There is real, boiling HATE there. You would not believe how much Reno hates Las Vegas -- they hate everything about us. We're bigger, brasher, we get much more attention, we're seen as the upstart, barely literate bastard child who somehow (because of dumb luck) enjoys a success he doesn't deserve. And Vegas, for our part, can't stand Reno's unfounded arrogance: they're smug, backward, their economy is a joke, and they're pretentious fucks who crow over the one sushi bar in town and hold power meetings at the new Starbucks.
Hm. Can you tell which side I'm more familiar with?
The crowd was ugly that night, my friends. It was a sea of rough-looking, weaving people, all drunk and ready to break into a riot. I found Miles, who (thank Christ) was sitting with us, clutched Conor's hand, put up my forearm and pushed our way through the crowd. Miles' and my main goal was to get the boy to our seats without having beer spilled on him.
At the end of the first quarter, we sat down. And then we were forced to listen to an extremely loud, very inebriated, foul-mouthed moron who let everyone in the entire section know what he thought about his buddy's whore girlfriend, how he really needed another beer, how to find Osama bin Laden and sometimes he even talked about the game. This guy never let up.
Then Conor wanted a glass of water. God, why didn't I bring one? But Miles wanted (needed) a drink, too. So I offered to let the boys watch football while I got in line.
There I stood, in another crush of people, buffeted on all sides by the drunk and sweaty, some calling out for Reno and more for Vegas. There were TV screens in the tiny space above the liquor line, and I watched UNR go up on UNLV 17-0. Perfect. I don't know exactly how long it took to get to the front and place my order, but I did have to fend off at least two people who thought it would be okay to cut in front of me.
Just a couple of minutes into halftime, I had refreshment in hand and I made my way back to our seats. When I got there, Loud Moron was still going. I raised an eyebrow at Miles as I sat down and he rolled his eyes back at me. I pulled Conor close and gave him an icewater. He, blessedly, seemed mostly oblivious to how bad everything was. He had been having a conversation with Miles (which means he was talking at Miles without Miles saying much back) about every little thing that popped into his head. I love my child's ability to chatter on; I love hearing how he thinks. That night, I was thankful he was so busy talking that he didn't have to pay too much attention to Loud Moron.
The last straw for me was when, just before second-half kickoff, the field temperture was flashed on the big screen.
I spelled it that way on purpose: temperture. Because that's how THEY spelled it.
Field Temperture 89.
I may have gone a little mad at that moment. "This is a COLLEGE game," I squeaked. "This is for a COLLEGE and they can't spell TEMPERATURE correctly? AAAAAAAAA!"
That little slip on the part of the guy in the booth seemed to perfectly sum up that abomination of sporting event experience. I've felt safer at tractor pulls. I've had an easier time getting in and out of Dodger Stadium at the final Giants series of a playoff year. And how the HELL does the guy that runs the board, who has very little to type in the first place because everything else is some strange canned graphic, misspell tem-per-A-ture?
The game went nothing but downhill from there. Both on the field, and off. As Reno scored more and UNLV got more frustrated, little fights began breaking out around the stands. So we left.
And on the way home, Conor and I hit a standstill on one of the two major freeways through town.
On a Saturday night in Las Vegas, Nevada DOT thought it was the perfect time to push four travel lanes into one at the I-95/I-15 interchange. It took us over an HOUR to get to our freeway exit. And we proceeded to hit every traffic light -- every last one was unsynchronized.
Nevada DOT is on my shit list, big time.
And never, ever, was I so glad to get home.
I think I'm terrifically brave to relive all that.
No comments:
Post a Comment