FedEx Mountain

Apparently, people routinely watch football games from outer space. Who knew?

One of Lori's friends at work is a Redskins season ticker holder. He's been on the list to get tickets since the park opened in 1997 (as Jack Kent Cooke stadium.) This year he finally got tickets. He offered to sell us the pair of tickets for the Redskins-Steelers preseason game last Friday. Being Steelers fans (is it possible to have grown up in Western PA in the 70's and not be a Steelers fan?) we jumped at the chance.

"I'm sorry, these lots are for paying customers only."
--Comic Book Guy

If you don't know what you're doing parking-wise, you could be in for a real treat. The lots at the stadium are permit lots only. We need to see your papers. I have visions of Comic Book Guy from the Simpson's saying: "I'm sorry, these lots are for paying customers only." (You can't buy single-game tickets, either. Season tickets only.) There are cash lots -- both officially sanctioned lots and ones run by enterprising business folk of various reputes. Some of the cash lots are over a mile from the stadium!

There are cash lots with shuttle bus service if you know where to look for them. There are signs, somwhere. But not always. Once you finally manage to find a lot, they rape you $25.00 for the privilege of parking in it.

By the time we finally got to the game (we left home at about 7:15; the stadium is about 2 miles from the house) we had missed most of the first quarter. And then we discovered that we had to climb FedEx Mountain. Into space.

We were dive-bombed by space moths.

I'm not a young person, nor am I in anything you might call "shape." (Unless that shape were something of an amorphous blob, anyway.) I gotta tell you, folks. It's a LONG way up to the cheap seats. If you can call $59.00 tickets "cheap seats."

Ultimately we reached the summit of the mountain. Lori was happy because she knew that the seats we had were in the very last row: "At least we don't have to walk down any rows -- we're already at the top." Sadly, I had to point out that we were in fact ONLY at the beginning of the cheap seats; we still had 29 rows up to climb, this time up narrow stairs instead of the space ramp.

After more tribulations, and no small amount of vertigo, we finally made it to our seats. (Well, we made it to someone's seats. That far out in space I didn't figure anyone would notice or care if we cheated by a few rows.) So we finally made it to some seats, just in time to catch the last couple plays of the first quarter. And then we were dive-bombed by space moths.

To add insult to injury the Steelers couldn't even be bothered to score an offensive touchdown. Bad enough losing to the Redskins, but to be unable to score on offense at all? Makes me wonder why I climbed into space.

Posted by John at August 30, 2005 12:49 AM | TrackBack