Landslide

It's official--I'm old. More charitably, I've finally matured to a level where abstract, contrived events like spectator sports have slipped behind the more pragmatic, immediately relevant concerns in my personal hierarchy of needs. I was at the Metrodome for the Vikings game today, it was the middle of the 4th quarter, a resurgent home team holding fast to a newly taken and hard fought for lead, the crowd in a supportive uproar, the excitement and promise of the Todd Bouman era just starting to emerge before our eyes--and all I could think about was making sure I left early enough to beat the intractable clot of traffic that would soon be forming on Washington Ave. And my internal debate and referendum on leaving early vs. staying until the bitter end wasn't even close.

With the Vikes up by one point and the Giants starting a drive from deep in their own territory, I made like Michael Bennet and bounded out of my seat, hustled down the aisle, and ran down the stairs Then, making like Rick Kahn, I ran to the left-- straight toward the exit ramp--while all the time aggresively whining "We will win, we will win!"

By the time the Giants punched in a TD to take the lead I was in the concourse and just about to get sucked through the door, out of the hermetically sealed interior of the Dome and into the fresh air of freedom. By the time the excitement and promise of the Todd Bouman era came crashing to an end (with the second fumble of his 10 minute long career arc), I was pulling my car out of the Liquor Depot (a spot in which I got the privilege of renting for three hours for only $20) and silently congratulating myself on earning the empty ribbon of blacktop laid out in front of me, leading all the way back to St. Paul.

Yes, the fact I avoided bearing witness to another Vikings choke was a bonus (can you imagine sticking around for that garbage--and then having to sit in traffic for 45 minutes trying to get out of downtown!). But even if they would have hung on and won, my feelings would have been the same--namely, sweet relief and easy comfort on the drive home.

Before the game, while waiting for my party to arrive with the tickets, I loitered around the Vikings will call ticket area and had the following observations.

*All the Vikings' wives or girlfriends (and for those Kirby Puckett emulators--wives AND girlfriends) seem to enter through this gate. I presume this since those in the parade of women walking in at this spot before the game were better looking than any other woman in attendance at the game by a magnitude of about 5. Stunning, almost cartoon like beauty. They were all dressed in things like red velvet hip hugger pants and leather mid riff bearing halter tops. As you never see this type of woman casually on the street in this town, I have to believe the players fly them in special, and then immediately after the game send them back out to the more sophisticated, fashion capitals of the world. Or at least back to the Western suburbs.

*Bud Grant and his wife look very old and each walk with pronounced and painful looking limps. But they both were smiling and congenial to the well wishers who greeted them. Bud was wearing his pale yellow NFL Hall of Fame blazer, which seemed kind of odd. If there's one person in Minnesota who doesn't need to flaunt his professional credentials, it would be Bud. Maybe that's the only sport coat he owns.

*Dr. John Najarian enters through the Vikings will call gate. I wouldn't think he'd have any contacts left with the team, since the ownership no longer includes his cronies from the Minneapolis business community, but he was still whisked in with all due deference by the security staff.

*A slovenly, obese man dressed in some sort of amateurish, faded and torn, Middle Ages type Nordic garb attempted to enter. (He looked like a cross between a homeless person and a Renaissance Festival featured act--which come to think of it, isn’t that far apart.) Needless to say, he drew some additional attention from security and the Minneapolis cop working the door. He apparently had the proper ticket and credentials--which makes you wonder which sad sack Viking is giving up his comps to this character instead of his favorite stripper from Sheik's. (I got the sense this was Mike Tice's brother or father or something.) But before they let him enter, they asked him to open up his coat, which revealed, stuck in his waistband, a Viking-type dagger, with a genuine, polished 9 inch blade on it. After some additional inspection, the cop confiscated it and led the gentlemen inside the building, no doubt for a full body cavity search and a check for outstanding warrants. But he must have passed, since during the 3rd quarter his smiling and drunk-as-a-monkey face was put up on the scoreboard for all to see. (No sign of the knife though). And as long as Vikings crowds are disproportionately made up of guys like this (real fans!) I should have no problem getting home directly by leaving mid-fourth quarter.