My trip to Berkeley this weekend was lovely. Lovely. However, I spent three and a half hours in Oakland Airport last night. Three and a half hours. It was mobbed with Raiders fans, still drunk and excited from the game, roaming around in black jerseys and engaging other black jersey wearers in drunken, excited, totally pointless conversations. One sat down next to me for the apparent purpose of calling his (presumably) girlfriend and asking, and I quote, "Hey, baby, are we going out to dinner or are we just going to stay home and bone?" I found myself another seat, and another black jersey sat down next to me and started talking to me about how much he likes sitting on the floor in airports.
Still another spent all three and a half hours loudly and unconcealedly harassing every woman within visual range -- to me he suggested, I believe, a hotel room and staying an extra week, and my shock that anyone would direct such a suicidally cockfaced remark to someone so obviously hostile was so great that it caused me to automatically assume he had been talking to the sweatered, avuncular man standing to my left. (That man, with somewhat clearer perception, declined to respond to my incredulous "Was he talking to you?") The jersey wearer continued his unexamined commentary, propositioning women with babies and/or partners, cussing at the general public, and harassing the airline employees. Two minutes after boarding he was removed from the flight, and, weirdly, went as quietly and docilely as a lamb.
In short:
While there are obviously people (e.g.) who are pleasant and socially appropriate and have an abiding interest in professional sports, and may indeed back the silver and black for all I know, on behalf of absolutely everyone who spent any amount of time in the hopelessly crowded and delayed Oakland Airport last night, I would like to say a resounding and heartfelt "Fuck the Raiders". Fuck the Raiders, fuck their stupid game, fuck their goddamn fans, fuck whoever thought Sunday night was a good time for a sporting event, and fuck the whole shebang all the way back to whoever invented football.
Thank you. An entry about my lovely weekend in Berkeley will arrive shortly. Unregistered comments have been disabled on account of massive amounts of spam (not on account of offended Raiders fans, who are welcome to get a TypeKey login). Also, I spoon Kingman.
Posted by dianna at December 17, 2007 09:45 AMMan, a round-trip airline flight for a football game. I can barely exert myself to do single-day round-trip flying for a job interview, and that's with someone else paying the fare. I would admire the dedication if they weren't big jerks.
Posted by: MoltenBoron at December 17, 2007 11:07 AMThe game was over by about 4, which is a testament to the tenacity with which Raider fans dedicate themselves to drunken boorishness. Imagine the scene at the airport if the Raiders had actually won the game!
Raider fans alone make the entire Richmond-Fremont BART line a no-go for me anytime September-December. Doesn't matter if they won or lost, doesn't matter if they were playing at home or on the road, doesn't matter if the Raiders have the worst record in the NFL - every BART car will be jammed with silver-and-black clad assholes shouting "RAAAAAAAAI-ders!" every fifteen seconds.
Posted by: sean at December 17, 2007 11:20 AMEr, that's any SUNDAY, September-December. I also forgot to say, fuck the Raiders.
Posted by: sean at December 17, 2007 11:21 AMCoffee tried to come out of my nose at the image of a startled Dianna asking the nice avuncular man if the boorish Raiders fan had been propositioning him. Fortunately, my nose is all stuffed up.
You totally should have taken the flight to Spokane that they were so persistently announcing while we were trying to talk. Or Albuquerque.
Fuck the Raiders.
Posted by: katie at December 17, 2007 12:16 PM