Fat City

Saturday I tailgated with fifteen other football fans at the Northwestern-Purdue game. It was a mixed crowd, part Purdue, part NU. Because I had dual allegiances, I ended up wearing Purdue colors with a bunch of NU purple beads -- the kind they hand out at Mardi Gras after someone yells, "Show us your tats!"

We got there at 8:00 AM for an 11:00 kick off. Anything before noon is early for football. I don't think I woke up until halftime. We didn't leave until after 4:00. The people next to us, a group of former football players, judging by their size and girth, brought along a lawn mower engine they had converted into a margarita mixer. The exhaust was almost as intoxicating as the brew they mixed up. They also set up an industrial strength barbecue pit. It was the size of a sofa. When we left, they were still going strong, especially the Jimmy Buffett wannabe, wearing shorts, sandals, and sporting a mullet.

It took three cars to bring all the stuff we needed for our repast. I counted three tables, a tent, at least eight chairs, all purple, a portable stove right out of the Williams-Sonoma catalog, a radio, a backyard fireplace -- yep one of those big ones -- a bag of pinon wood, pretty much everything but a toilet. Luckily, there were four portable ones about two cars away.

In between watching everybody else setting up and taking down, I had bagels, juice, chive, blueberry, garden vegetable, and plain cream cheese, smoked salmon, hot chocolate, some de-caf coffee, a delicious homemade egg casserole thingy that was kept hot in a pizza carrier, two bowls of tasty beef chili with cheese and oyster crackers, half a piece of flourless chocolate cake, two bottles of water, and four chocolate mints from a box I bought from kids who were selling them to raise money for their high school meth lab or something. I haven't eaten anything since. Except a bag of cheese popcorn to wash the other stuff down.

And people wonder how I stay so thin.

An alum from Alaska named Dale stopped by with some reindeer sausage for us. I thought with his graying, balding pate, he looked like he might be in my age range, so I asked when he graduated. Sheesh. He was five years younger.

Later, one of the collitch kids got upset that Dasher and Prancer had been turned into food. Actually, I thought the sausage looked more like something the size of a T.Rex might use to impregnate his lady love. Regardless, we decided to hide the dead deer casing under a plate so it wouldn't upset the sensitive coed any more than it already had.

Along tailgate row, there was another alum who, for a mere 20K, will outfit your van or pick up with an all-in-one barbecue, cooler, TV dish, toilet, everything you need for partying in the parking lot before the game. The TV set up did it for me.

More later, I'm having internet problems.