Go Figure

Unless I was protesting some great injustice, someone would have to ask me to sit down only once and I would do it.

Today at the Packers game, a Panthers fan sitting next to me stood up to watch every single play – when her team had the ball and when the Packers had the ball. Didn’t matter, she was on her feet and screaming.

She was the only one standing.

I figured she’d soon see that she was the only one leaping up but she didn’t. She stood long after the play was completed so the people behind and around her had to watch the replay on the Jumbotron.

I think the protocol at sporting events is thus: Stay in your seat unless the crowd is standing up, you know, for the National Anthem or the last out or to cheer some fabulous accomplishment like a touchdown or an interception. And even then, look to make sure the people behind you are standing up, are able to stand up, and that you won’t be blocking their view.

So my husband spoke to her, more than once but she continued to stand, oblivious to his complaint or that of the man behind us. It felt like defiance to me, like one of my kids asked to take the garbage out but continuing to stare at the TV.

After another request, she became offended and dispatched her boyfriend to a duel. Said boyfriend was wearing Carhartt overalls and an animal fur hat with a face and long fur tendrils. He started out belligerent, saying he was going to stand up the rest of the game just to block our view, but quieted as Howard explained the increasing phenomenon in the NFL of fans standing up at inappropriate times, citing some news article as evidence. He told the man his girlfriend’s standing up was inappropriate and then said, “There’s no reason we can’t be civil about this,” and then reached out to shake the fur hat man’s hand and, probably without thinking, the fur hat man shook his hand. And then he retreated to his girlfriend’s side and never stood up again unless we were all standing, which we were at the end, terrified the Panthers would make a touchdown in the final 30 seconds of the game.

So that’s my story from today. Amazement that someone would be so curiously rude and more amazement that my husband could get a mad man in a fur hat with a face to shake his hand and go sit down.