Incredible Week, Salt Style

Ladies and gents, Welcome to Incredible Week! This week will be solely, SOLELY dedicated to all things Incredible. Mr Incredible, that is. There will be a series of guest bloggers until Mr. Incredible reads slash followsfor the week, blogging about all of his favorite things.  Goal: Some attention.




Our fine bloggoddess of the day, is Salt from SaltSays!  None better a blogger for this blog week than her considering she wears too much makeup to football games, and she loves that sport where crotch grabbing guys hit a ball and run around in circles.  Geeewhilickers Mr incredible shoulda married her:

Facepaint & Feathers: An Attention Whore’s Guide on How NOT to be a Super Fan

I have been a sports fan since I was a wee Salt. Whether it was attending Baltimore Orioles ball games with my dad or – excuse me while I show my age – watching the Baltimore Colts play football (at least up until they left in ‘84), I always loved the thrill of the game. I sported the colors and wore hats and waved pennants that my dad would buy me at the ball park. I cheered when my team went on to a win and felt sadness when they lost. Funny how much easier it was to get over those losses when you’re 5.

I was a miniature super fan in training. I can still remember the first time in the 80’s where I asked if it was ok to draw an orange O on my cheek before a game. My parents gave me the go-ahead and it was all downhill from there.

So in my Incredible Week guest bloggity blog today, I’m going to share with you the 2 biggest sports fan failures of my past. Because Kiera says that Mr. Incredible likes sports and if I’m good at anything, it’s looking like a fool at sporting events.

The Facepaint Fiasco 

It was the late 90’s and my Baltimore Ravens were taking on the Minnesota Vikings. It was snowing and FREEZING and my stepfather suggested we play it safe by taking a charter bus to the stadium. On the way downtown I put the finishing touches on my uniform for the evening: a  Ray Lewis jersey with jeans (complete with layers underneath because our seats were upper deck), a metric ton of purple and black Mardi Gras beads, a knit Ravens hat, black feather boa…and my face paint.

It was the most elaborate paint job I had put together to date. Half of my face was purple with a white #52, the other half was white with a big gold B on my cheek, and black lipstick on my lips. It took me more than an hour to get it right and I couldn’t wait to get to the game and show everyone what an awesome fan I was. I was already getting lots of compliments on my artistry.

Ok so… did I mention it was freezing? As we lined up in the aisle to disembark, I could feel the freezingness seeping into the warm bus. But it was cool because I was looking like a demented Cirque du Soleil reject in my face paint, boa and beads! I was ready to go! I WAS SO AMPED that I jumped off the bus with a cheer…

…that was cut short the moment my feet hit the ground and I felt the water based paint stiffen and crack in every direction. I reached up in disbelief and huge chunks of it fell off into my hand. The paint had literally frozen solid on my face and shattered.

There was no way I could leave it on there so I spent kickoff in the ladies room picking the rest of it off. My skin was all red and blotchy underneath and I was itchy and uncomfortable for the rest of the evening. It was ridiculous. At least we beat the Vikes, but that was the last time I messed around with face paint.

Fan of the Game. Almost.

Once upon a time, Baltimore had a really good baseball team. Back in the summer of 1999, my friends and I would shell out money for cheap seats to go watch the O’s play, sometimes a couple times a week. We always got a big group together and we made it our goal that summer to get on the jumbo-tron screen as many times as we could. (DREAM BIG!!) We made sure to dress up extra cute for every game just in case that happened. I think our grand total for the summer was 9.

Anyway,  I don’t know how any of your baseball games work, but during an Orioles game, a most coveted and important title is bestowed upon one lucky person in the audience: “Fan of the Game”. I only cared about “Fan of the Game” for the title. If you won you would receive some free Pepsi and a seat upgrade to some other location in the stadium, but we preferred the outfield because that’s where the rowdy fans sat and we were a bunch of 21 year old beer drinking a-holes.  But regardless, when they announced that they were searching Oriole Park for the “Fan of the Game”, we all got up and danced around like mad as if the idea of free Pepsi was the best thing ever.

One fateful day, I was wearing my cutest orange tank top, jean skirt, and yet another feather boa (what can I say, my sports wardrobe was alternately hardcore and drag queenish). The announcer gave his usual spiel and I had had enough beer so that dancing on my folding stadium seat seemed like the most obvious plan of attack. The cameramen scanned the stadium and then suddenly THERE I WAS! dancing and waving my boa on the big screen! My friends all screamed with mixed joy and jealousy and proceeded to cheer me on.

The camera panned around again and then CAME BACK TO ME! OMG!!! I was actually in the running for “Fan of the Game”! The camera also kept landing on this hillbilly looking guy who didn’t really seem to be doing or wearing anything important. So I figured I had this in the bag, but turned it up to 11 just in case. I was dancing like a woman possessed and then the contest was narrowed down between me and Joe Dirt.

The screen flashed to me…

Then to Joe.

Me.

Joe.

ME…..

And finally landed on Joe with the big caption that read “FAN OF THE GAME!” underneath his trailer trash face. He celebrate his free Pepsi and high fived his redneck friends and I just stood on the seat slack jawed because WTF had I done wrong?? Why did they not love my cute outfit and fly dance moves?

Defeated, I started to get down from the stadium chair and that’s when it happened. My orange flip flop got caught and I fell. I fell right into my friend and knocked him over. Beer went flying everywhere including all over my head. No one was hurt in the process, but at that moment I had never been so glad to have the stadium cameras off me in my entire life. Joe Dirt could keep his Pepsi and his seat upgrade. I would leave there with my dignity!

Or as much dignity as I had left after shaking my ass on a folding chair wearing a feather boa in front of 45,000 people.

Many thanks to Kiera for letting me play around on her blog today!!! This is one of my favorites to read and I feel all honored to write a post over here. 

Update:  My goodness, my goodness!  I was just slathered with compliments over there at SaltSays.  So here go my compliments: first of all, she's a good writer (see above).  Unlike my language arts skills that barely passed forming bullet points into full out thoughts, she actually has paragraphs that consists of more than one sentence.  Secondly, she's one of my favorite blogs, too.  No, I'm not just returning the favor.  She is one of my favorite blogs, like I go back and have read hers from the beginning.  It's a work in process.  and I love.  oh and by the way salt i need to tell you that i don't think i'm eating enough carbs...  And lastly, well, I might even have a newfound interest in sports.  Really.  Mardi gras beads?  Too much makeup?  Competitions with Joe Dirt?  me likes.