Football Hate

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a girl who knows a bit about college football. I'm relegated to living on the West Coast where such fans are not in abundance. Sure, there are the ever casual Cal and Stanford fans but hard core passionate fans? Not so much. So when I am rocking an LSU shirt the other night, am by myself and guys want to talk to me, they should say something at least mildly impressive. Like, I dunno, knowing the first thing about football would be a good start.

I was sitting at one of the back tables at North Star by myself, after Cheryl left. It's the 4th quarter and I don't plan on being there much longer. As the bar was pretty crowded at this point, I let these two guys, nerdy, hipster types, know that no one was sharing the table with me and they were welcome to sit. Geezus don't let me do that again. Because here's what they said:

"Is this, like, the LSU bar?" I nod assent. Resisting every urge in my body to say, "No. No it's not. They just have the game on every TV, the sound on, are serving gumbo, and people are cheering loudly when we do something impressive. Let alone the fact that MOST EVERYONE IN HERE IS WEARING PURPLE AND GOLD." Is this how people generally make small talk? I mean, I'm fine with the occasional stupid comment to start a conversation, am probably every so often guilty of it, but a) I'm intently watching my live football game and b) I'm sober. Leave me alone. This is my "don't fucking talk to me" face, unless you're gonna tell me how impressive our D is.

"Does LSU play Florida this year?" Me, "Um, we play Florida every year." "Oh. Do you know when?" "We play them October 8th." "Is it a home game?" Motherfucker, GOOGLE IT. (Yes, it's a home game. On the road to Tuscaloosa, at home for UF.)

An aside to his friend that I overhear, "Florida has this cheer, 'It's good to be a Florida Gator.'" Great, you insipid idiot. It's GREAT to be a Florida Gator. Think about it. It's more rhyme-y. And good? Just good? Doesn't someone want to be better than good? How do you...? Never mind. Stupid living in California. I'm going to guess by the hints of conversation that this guy was some sort of Florida fan through his family or something. This is why I hate UF fans. So many bandwagon hoppers who have never visited the state. And their SF bar remains Hooters. Without a full bar. Which still seems super amateur to me. How do you claim to be SEC fans and then not even drink all the whiskey in the world? Sigh.

This was my favorite interaction though. As I'm getting up to leave he says, "I have a funny story about LSU! I was driving cross country with my friend and we were in Shreveport, Louisiana and we were at a Crapple Barrel. You know that place?" "You mean a CRACKER Barrel? Yes. I'm familiar with them." "Yeah, so we're at the crapple barrel (seriously, he repeated this mistake) and there are all these people in LSU gear, which probably isn't that unusual for that part of the country, so I say to my friend, 'LSU must be in Shreveport.' I walk by this old guy, like really old, sitting in a rocking chair! I mean, he's sitting there in a rocking chair! And I walk by, I'm already past him and he says, 'It's in Baton Rouge.' Ahahaha! So now I know, LSU is in Baton Rouge." All my willpower to not trot out a "Cool story, bro" to this guy. Okay so many things wrong here: OF COURSE he was in a rocking chair. They are ubiquitous on the front porches that adorn all CRACKER Barrels, of which there are many in the country (god I miss $10 filling breakfasts at Cracker Barrel). Secondly: all you've managed to tell me is that you don't know a goddamn thing about this country's geography. You probably thought SF was next to LA before you moved here from wherever too. I meant to ask him where he went to school because his stupidity was overwhelming but he was a nerdy hipster type at my North Beach dive bar and really I just wanted to punch him. But as our game was finally over and I was out of beer, I just left instead. Oh: and that story wasn't even remotely amusing.

Granted, if I wasn't a huge college football fan I might not know that LSU is in Baton Rouge. And honestly, the amount of times people assume it's in New Orleans and then I have to explain that it's not but that Baton Rouge is a mere 75 miles from NO is not insignificant. I know Iowa State is in Ames, South Carolina is in Columbia, which is also the city that Mizzou is in though obviously in a different state. KState is in the little apple, thus nicknamed for it being Manhattan, Kansas. So on and so forth. The capital of small African countries? No. But I can tell you that like the capital of Greece, the University of Georgia is in Athens.

I did point out to him that there is an LSU satellite in Shreveport but I don't think that was the point.

It's 11 p.m. at a different San Francisco bar. That means it's 1 a.m. central. I had the bartender put on the replay of the game for me because, why the hell not? I'm watching it again. Guy, "Good game so far, huh?" "Um. It's a replay. I already know we won."

Maybe I was just running touchy that night. Perhaps? Just...geezus, the chance to meet SOMEONE in this city who can have an actual conversation about college football would be nice. Bonus points if it's with a male and he's single.