Prepping for an Awkward Weekend Gathering

Here we are, Saturday morning, I’ve been lounging, reading the paper, catching some morning cartoons and realized that I’m supposed to go to a Kentucky Derby party today. The invitation says, “Don your seersucker, your Derby hats and pastels. We expect Colonel Sanders to abound!” First of all, I’m not quite sure what that means. I try, as evidenced in my contributions to this little blog, here, to avoid words like “don” and “abound”. Literally if you Google this blog it will tell you that it is written at a secondary reading level; that’s lower than USA Today.

Second, I’m not really a fan of these types of weekend sporting events. Unless you’re actually going to go, I truly believe sports are meant to be enjoyed in five ways:

1. In your boxers with a beer. This is the typical weekday sporting event. Hey, it’s Thursday and the NBA Playoffs are on, let’s take a look! Followed by the realization that there are about eight rounds that need to be played before the obvious lower tier is siphoned off from the upper tier. But you stare aimlessly, drifting out and back, just because you need a little time to not think about anything.
2. At the office, as an obvious, less awkward type of conversation with coworkers. Most everybody in the workplace keeps at least a pulse on the sports world, just to have something to talk about. We’ve addressed this before; in fact, much of the site is based around this premise. But you lose out on this opportunity if you see your coworkers on the weekend while watching a sporting event. You can’t say on Monday, “Hey, Frank, how was the weekend? Did you catch the Derby?” if you know full well he was there and you watched it with him.
3. In those corporate seats that you or a buddy stumbled upon after an email from your boss’s boss’s boss that there are four tickets tonight, first come first serve. I cannot afford to sit in the lower level. Even in instances when I could, I have a hard time paying for it. That said, when I go to a game I either try to creatively find the cheapest seat with the best angle on the game (nearly impossible, there are people doing this for a living who try to counteract anything like this) or I jump all over those company seats and invite a few friends to go and act like they are mine (right about… here. Pretty good seats, huh?)
4. At my annual company picnic. We play softball there. It’s hilarious. I play catch with my boss’s son. I talk about “what movement he has on his curve” (you can’t really throw an overhand curve with a softball). I risk my knees and balls to get down in the catcher’s position to be a part of him mowing down guys in the bottom of the ninth in the seventh game of the 2024 World Series. I get to go out and swing the bat a little, make contact. Remember all that I thought could have been, but never really could ever have been. The same type of thing goes for the old weekday get-out-of-work shotgun scramble at 12:30pm, but more on that next week.
5. Via fantasy sports vehicles. Proverbial/hypothetical vehicles, that is. Your fantasy baseball team. I went to a game the other night and even though my home team took a pounding, at least a guy on my fantasy team hit a two-run homer. There was some redemption. I could use his beating of my guys as leverage to beat another guy in a situation far more important to me.

None of these scenarios include getting dressed up in costume to go watch the so-called “most exciting two minutes in sports”. I do not enjoy weekend sports parties. I just don’t. Leave me alone to my ways on the weekend. Sometimes this even goes for the Super Bowl if I’m going somewhere my wife drags me. I try my best to awkward conversations about sports and life on the weekends; how about that Giants defense line, Carl? (Good point, Dan Patrick, way to listen to ESPN Radio on your way to the party!) Then this vicious cycle plays out, where awkwardness leads to drinking which leads to awkwardness which leads to sleeping on the couch. I’d just rather avoid the whole charade.

Also, to the event itself: If you got the best at just about any sport and told them to do something that they all do very, very well together on the same field/court/pitch/track for exactly two minutes/over a stated length and then got everybody drinking and betting I’d imagine it would be in contention for the most exciting two minutes in sport.

Sports like baseball (and arguably football) aren’t made for this, but others are; take Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. and line them up for a two-minute drag race and I guarantee you that it would blow away the Kentucky Derby. Plus we’d all get to drink Budweiser and watch them peel out from the start, hit full speed, maybe bump a guy or two into the sidewall and come flying through the finish line where I’d bet you what’s left of my 401k that you’d need a camera to figure out who won.

Anyway, so that’s where I’m headed. I am trying to throw together an appropriate outfit with full knowledge that my best “pastel” is light royal blue and I own not a single item made of seersucker. The mint juleps will be a’ flowin’.

For a bit of news, the frontrunner I Want Revenge has been pulled from the race, so mind your bets.

CAPS LOCK CARL