Nevermore

I’ve been to two professional football games in my entire life. Both of them were in Atlanta, and both of them had the National Football Conference’s Atlanta Falcons on one side of the ball, so that sort of contradicts the ‘professional’ part of that first sentence.

That being said I witnessed my first professional football game hosted by a team in the American Football Conference when I saw the Baltimore Ravens host the Carolina Panthers (once again challenging the meaning of the word ‘professional’) in M & T Bank Stadium in the former stomping grounds of Edgar Allen Poe. I was visiting my sister who just so happens to have two season tickets to all of the Ravens’ games and since—for the first time in all of my visits to Baltimore during football season—I was in town and the Ravens had a home game, she invited me to go to the game with her. My sister, well aware that I will never spend one red cent on professional sports, agreed to pay for any expenses we might incur (had it not been for her hunger pangs in the third quarter there wouldn’t have been any; I’m a cheap date).

Figuring I had nothing to lose—outside of the eight hours required to watch a three-hour football game as I would soon find out—I told her to count me in.

I know what you’re thinking. ‘Eight hours for a three-hour game? How could that be?’

Real quick:

9:00 a.m. We drove to the stadium. Miraculously we avoided any traffic jams, accidents or mobs consisting of overly-optimistic Panther fans.

9:30 a.m. We met friends in the parking lot and socialized; drank a beer. Correction: Beers.

10:30 a.m. We toured vendor booths and exhibits; drank more beer. Correction: Much more.

11:30 a.m. We walked the perimeter of the stadium looking for a friend whom we later discovered watched the game in a bar located 20 miles away; drank beer to combat possible dehydration on a sunny and unseasonably warm day. Correction: It’s totally within reason to assume we were searching for a porta-john as well as looking for her friend, seeing as beers are nothing more than rental commodities.

12:45 p.m. We entered the stadium and found our seats; everyone was dressed in purple and/or black (the official Raven team colors). Correction: Everyone but me.

Regarding the color purple: Purple and white were the colors of my high school, Duncan U. Fletcher Senior High in Neptune Beach, Florida. Go Fighting Senators!
I hate the color purple. I haven’t worn it since high school. I loathe the Minnesota Vikings and the LSU Tigers in some part because one of their team colors is purple. I’ve never seen ‘The Color Purple.’ Two reasons: Oprah and Winfrey. I’m not a fan. In fact I’m not a fan of her spinoff talk shows hosted by two of her disciples, Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil. In fact one of the marching orders for my dental hygienist is to make sure my 4:00 appointment (during which she has the Ellen DeGeneres Show turned on—which is totally fine because she—Ellen, not my dental hygienist is the funniest lady on the planet) is over before 5:00 because that is when the Dr. Phil show begins. If I’m still in the dentist’s office when Dr. Phil’s big, shiny head takes the stage I’m free to walk.

1:00 p.m. Kickoff. It didn’t take long to determine I was correct in implying Carolina was not a professional team.

1:01 p.m. until 3:59 p.m. I heard the refrain from the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army so many times I fear I may vomit the next time I hear the song in its entirety.

4:00 p.m. Ravens 38, Panthers 10. It wasn’t nearly as close as it sounds. Carolina was pathetic.

4:05 p.m. We left the stadium. Miraculously we avoided any traffic jams, accidents or mobs consisting of vengeful Panther fans.

5:00 p.m. We’re back at my sister’s house; I realized the game consumed eight hours of my life I’ll never get back.

However I have to admit the day had a few bright spots:

• I met some of the notable Baltimore fans, including Raven Man and June Cleavage (don’t ask), every last one of them decked out from head to toe in purple and black feathers, various Spandex accessories and some semblance of a beak. (Yes, I had my photo taken with most of them. Why? Pure and simple: Beer. Correction: Lots of beer.)

• I took my very first ‘selfie’ standing beneath the new statue of Ray Lewis outside of the stadium. The photograph presents the illusion that Lewis is about to stomp on my head. (Note: About four hours and seven or eight beers later my head felt like it had been stomped—repeatedly—by the entire Raven defensive unit.)

• I adopted a real raven (black feathers, a beak, no Spandex) at a booth hosted by the Baltimore Zoo. In my mind his name is ‘Edgar,’ my personal tribute to the famous author of the poem ‘The Raven.’
• Steve Smith of the Ravens was the difference maker in the game, catching two touchdown passes including a deflected pass he caught in stride for the game’s first score. It was payback time as the Panthers released Smith a year ago and—judging by the comments Smith made in the week following the game—there are lots of bad blood between he and the Panther front office. I love a good vengeance story (‘I was stabbed in the back,’ Smith said after the game in reference to how he had been treated by the Panthers).

• A Raven fan several rows directly in front of me—obviously having consumed about three times as much alcohol as I—miraculously avoided falling headfirst over the railing and into the end zone, eliciting many ‘oooh’s’ and ‘ahhh’s’ from the hometown crowd throughout the game.

• I only saw one Ray Rice jersey the entire day. For all I know it might have been him.

So to be fair, the day wasn’t a total loss.

That is, unless you were a Carolina Panther.

As to whether or not I’ll ever attend another professional football game, feel free to ask the raven of Edgar Allen Poe and he’ll gladly tell you:

Nevermore.