Frozen Football

Like many men (and women I'm sure), my husband loves football. Sunday afternoons are reserved for watching or dvr-ing games. He coaches, cheers and generally raises a ruckus (I think I hate the word ruckus) at the tv as if  A) the players can hear him and, B) they will listen to a random fan when the coaches' words don't seem to be working. 

For the most part I nap or read a book all while shaking my head in a "why did no one tell me I was marrying a lunatic?" sort of way.

To top off this insanity, his favorite team is our local, not particularly good at anything but crime team. The Bengals. Seriously, I feel like just saying "the Bengals" is a punchline.

A few years back, much to the cost and dismay of the local taxpayers, a new stadium was built for the Bengals (ha, still funny!) that was much larger than the old one. Bradley has wanted to go every game since it was completed. Sadly, tickets to the overpriced monstrosity were well beyond our budget.

This year for Xmas, my inlaws gave him tickets to the last regular season home game. Dec.30. He was ecstatic. The fact that it is an outdoor stadium, next to a river, in December, in Ohio didn't seem to register as a not fun idea. 

So we went. On the coldest day of the year so far. The high for the day was forecast as 21°. We parked in a garage 5 blocks away and walked to the stadium for the 1pm game. I was frozen by the time we got there even wearing three layers of clothes. 

We got in, found our seats and waited for the game to start. We were high enough up that we got all of the wind. We were under a billboard/sign post that was dripping melting snow onto out backs the whole time. And we only had the sun on us for about an hour before it went behind the stadium and we were in the shade. It was miserable. 

But he was so excited to be there I couldn't complain. Much. We toughed it out until about halfway through the 4th quarter and he gave up. He was too cold and they were losing anyway. So we left. But he was happy, and that's why we went.