one of these things is not like the others
There was (is?) a segment on Sesame Street with four objects moving around the screen and then falling into a grid pattern. Children would be expected to identify the outlier while a catchy song, something like ♪♫One of these things is not like the others ♩♪ One of these things just doesn't belong, played. My day last Saturday could have been the inspiration for at least two such segments.
The things in the first group would be:
- fancy cruiser bike sale
- farmers market
- an NFL preseason game between the Oakland Raiders and the SF 49ers
- an educational documentary about organisms (specifically insects)
The things in the second grouping would be:
- a loud girl with attitude wearing booty shorts, heals, and a 49ers jersey
- a polite Canadian woman
- a scary angry white dude with silver face paint
- a gangster wearing a Raiders jersey (who may or may not be armed)
❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧
When Ed and Adrian initially mentioned the possibility of buying cheap tickets to the game at Candlestick Park later in the afternoon, my first thought was "it'll be freezing". My second thought was "it'll be rough". Then, I thought that going to the game could be fun. I like football. I have a ride. Let's do this.
So I layered up—as one does in August in San Francisco—and got into Adrian's 1992 Honda Civic hatchback with three other Canadians. We were en route for my first ever NFL game... after a stop for tacos, another stop at the Radisson Airport to pick up our tickets, and a very long wait to enter the parking lot. Needless to say, we arrived late. No tailgating for us.
It wasn't until we were in a line to get frisked that I realized that it was not about football.
We found our seats after navigating a crowded corridor surrounded by a posse of girls yelling "OOOAKLAAAND!!" at deafening levels. Initially distracted by the young dudes clad in Niners gear trash-talking a drunk, obnoxious Oakland fan, I finally remembered to look for the score. Scanning the stadium, a huge banner reading "REPORT BAD BEHAVIOR - TEXT 'BAD FAN' TO 555-5555" was more prominent than the scoreboard or any of the advertising. I wondered how bad behavior needed to be to warrant a text. Then a brawl broke out in the stands. Everyone watched as the cops swarmed the area, broke it up, and escorted the culprits away. I put my phone away.
What down is it? Oooh! Field goal! (Yes, Keith, a field goal is 3 points)
Then there was another brawl. A touchdown. Another brawl. A girl falling down the stairs. The guy next to me lighting a cigarette. Another touchdown. We left. A shooting. We witnessed it all except the shooting, which I found out about via a New York Times tweet later that night.
Something didn't belong, and it was me. A geeky white woman blends in at the Battle of the Bay preseason game as well as she would on the set of a Jay-Z music video. Even if that white woman regularly attends hip hop dance classes and considers herself a football fan.
