Wednesday, November 16, 2005

The Kansas Trip, Part 3 (and Final Chapter)

Driving into work this morning I was listening to CNN Headline News on my brand new XM Satellite Radio and caught the highlights of a recent George W. Bush press conference. Inspired by the intelligent back and forth between the ole’ commander and chief and the White House press corp, I decided to write Part 3 of the Kansas trip like a press conference …

Q: We all know that you, and the others who joined you on the trip, are notoriously responsible when it comes to drinking – did you take any precautions to make sure you didn’t drink and drive while you were in Kansas City.

A: Yes. Despite the fact our hotel was within a short drive of Westport, Kansas City, we took a cab both to and from the bars.

Q: What was your Kansas City cab experience like?

A: Good question. I accidentally left the digital camera in hotel room, so Ryan and I had to take a cab back to the hotel to get it. We made small talk with the cabbie and revealed that we were KU fans in town to watch the KU/Nebraska game on Saturday. While we ran into the hotel to retrieve the camera, our cab driver called his friend who is a fan of the University of Missouri – a KU rival. Upon our return, we had the following conversation:

CAB DRIVER: I was just on the phone with my friend who graduated from Missouri. I told him I had a couple of Jayhawk fans in my cab. He wanted to know if you guys ever get tired of asking, “Would you like fries with that?”

BILL: That’s really original. What does your friend do for a living?

CAB DRIVER: He drives a cab.

(This is the point in the story where Bill and Ryan try their hardest not to tear an oblique stomach muscle laughing)

BILL and RYAN (laughing and sarcastic): Ohhhhhhh, okay!

CAB DRIVER: There’s good money to be made in driving a cab, ya know. My friend just bought a Lincoln!

RYAN: Is it yellow?

Q: That obviously was the perfect comeback; but after clearly winning the good-natured teasing, did you fear for your life?

A: Despite the fact the cabbie got amazingly defensive and annoyed after Ryan’s zinger, and that we couldn’t stop laughing at him, we never thought he’d pull over and kill us. We give a lot of credit to the Kansas City cab companies for hiring pacifist Missouri fan sympathizers.

Q: How’s the diversity amongst the Kansas City cab drivers?

A: It’s great. At the end of the night, we got into a cab driven by a Muslim. Great guy. Bryn dazzled him with her knowledge of ritual fasting, which he very much respected. He was taken by Bryn and that a cute, blonde, American, Midwest girl would have such knowledge of his religion and its people. To show his appreciation, as we exited the cab, he proudly declared a jihad on Bryn’s vagina.

Q: Did you get ripped-off at all during the trip?

A: Yes. Isn’t it annoying and a total waste of money, when you put money into a juke-box and never hear your songs? I stuck in $5 and got like 15 songs – none of which I heard. Really irked me off. It’s like ordering original recipe chicken from KFC, only to get home and find out they gave you extra crispy. Very unsatisfying.

Q: Jasmine is known, the world over, for being … well … frankly, for being a wee-bit slutty at times. Did Jasmine do anything that would add to her legend?

A: I’ll let the historians decide what Jasmine’s legacy will be. I will say that on Friday night, Jasmine did excessively make-out with her Best in Show. For those of you who aren’t fans of dog shows (neither am I, by the way), the Best in Show is the best looking person you see at a bar. I was more than a little intoxicated at the time, so I can’t confirm if Jasmine and her Best in Show, had wandering hands, ran-off to the bathroom for a little afternoon delight (even though it was early morning), or repeatedly dry-humped on the dance floor; but all accounts so far point to Jasmine keeping her crotch to herself. I give Jasmine credit for showing restraint when kissing her Best in Show – it’s not easy to do.

Speaking of restraint and Jasmine, on our last night in Lawrence, she shattered the record for the fastest pick-up time; when she picked-up a not-21-year-old guy in about 1.653546223 seconds. The guy was just sitting there enjoying the night, when out of no where, Jasmine comes up and starts talking to him. The guy was so happy that he had the same look on his face that a 10-year old has after they ride Space Mountain for the first time. Later when he text-messaged Jasmine (or vice versa) and a hook-up was discussed, Jasmine defied all odds and stayed in our hotel room. I think the reason she said no was either 1) she didn’t want to have to deal with his parents 2) it would have been difficult to slip a big-headed, redhead past dorm security. But I don’t want to speculate.

Q: You mentioned earlier religious diversity; did you encounter any other religions on your trip?

A: As we were leaving the bars on Friday night, I was immediately stopped by a Christian women armed with a Bible. She firmly asked me if I knew that God, “Was against alcohol?” My response was, “Do you know what Jesus’ first miracle was?” The blank look on her face after I said that is not unlike the look someone gets when trying to read a foreign subway map. So I told her, “Jesus turned water into wine. I doubt Jesus is against alcohol when he chose to create it as his first miracle.” As amusing as that was, that first exchange is symbolic of the whole conversation we had with this woman and set the tone for the entire chat. Long story, short – Ryan and I blissfully debated Christianity with her for 20 minutes as we ordered hot dogs for the cab ride back to the hotel – we even drew a crowd!

I don’t have a problem with missionary work or people trying to spread the word of God (one of my best friends, Nicole, loves mission work), but a few things struck me about this encounter:

1) Waiting for drunk people outside of a bar probably isn’t the best venue for these discussions. Has anyone been totally plowed, about ready to take home their Best in Show for the night, had a brief chat with a Christian on the street corner, and said, “screw this, I am going to sober-up, send this ridiculously attractive person home by him/herself, and ask Jesus into my heart? I seriously doubt it (plus, debating a drunk person is an exhausting task in itself). If you are going to do mission work, why not spend your valuable time and energy working with the homeless, or with prostitutes, or with convicts, or with any other group that is going to yield a higher success rate and really give you a shot to influence someone’s life? Isn’t preaching to the drunk as they leave a bar/club, like me going to a KState or Missouri game, and trying to convince their fans to become Jayhawk fans as they leave the arena? Wouldn’t I have a better chance of getting someone to attend or support KU by going to high schools, junior colleges, employment agencies, or talking to people with no college experience? Of course I would.

2) If you are going to try to convert people on the street corner, be knowledgeable about your subject matter. I am sure this lady’s heart was in the right place, but she knew nothing about evolution, very little about what the Bible says on certain topics, i.e. – slavery (this lady was black, by the way), and not much about Christian history or philosophy. Not to mention, she had very poor speaking skills. Again, if I am trying to recruit someone to go to or support KU, I am not going to send out the students on academic probation to try to get people to embrace Jayhawk-anity.

Q: One of the reasons you guys took the trip when you did was so you could watch the Kansas Jayhawk vs. Nebraska Cornhusker football game. When was the last time the Jayhawks beat Nebraska in football?

A: The last time Kansas beat Nebraska in football was two months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence – James Madison was even at the game. We have black and white pictures hanging up in the student union of the future president waving his wheat after the game winning field goal.

Q: What was your impression of the Nebraska fans?

Well to be brutally honest, the traveling Cornhusker fans may be the most unattractive fan base in the United States today. I think on a per-tooth basis, their mouths have the fewest in the country. In fact, I’m sending a letter to ABC tomorrow, demanding they do an Extreme Makeover: Nebraska Students and Alumni.

I was also surprised by how quiet they were. I didn’t think 5,000 people at a sporting event could make so little noise. Maybe the fact the KU football team was beating them like it was basketball season had something to with their deafening silence … I’m not sure.

But they were very nice people for showing up.

Q: So for anyone who may have missed it, what was the final score of the game?


A: It was 247-3. Kansas!

Okay, I can’t lie, it was 104-15. Kansas. We would have scored 243 points if it wasn’t for that pesky 60 minute game rule they have in football.

Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!

Q: So Kansas ended their long losing streak to Nebraska … did any other streaks come to an end at the game?

A: Sadly yes. Bryn is one of the most coordinated people in world, not working for Cirque du Soleil. Bryn hasn’t accidentally spilt anything on anyone since she was a two-year old sitting in a high chair.

During halftime, she and Ryan went off to get some food from the concession stand and purchased a basket full of tacos. As she made her way through the people sitting in our row and to our seats, she somehow lost her balance and ended-up spraying tacos on at least four people plus Ryan. She had purchased three tacos and after the incident only one remained – that’s how bad the spill was. Taco sauce, lettuce, ground beef, taco shells and tomatoes, were launched everywhere. It seriously looked like someone tried to put out a fire using only taco ingredients.

Not only was Bryn nearly brought to tears by the embarrassment of hosing down a half-dozen Jayhawk fans with taco guts, but evidently the fans weren’t too pleased or sympathetic to her either - despite her repeated apologies. I guess I can’t really blame them though - I think we’d all be pretty upset if we were watching Kansas absolutely destroy one of the most storied football programs in college football history, and before we knew it, we were up to my waste in taco toppings, courtesy of some skinny blonde.

Poor Bryn.


Q: Getting back to the game itself, how did it feel to watch this ridiculously one-sided game, where the Jayhawks dominated from start to finish, and not only broke the spirit of the Cornhusker football team, but possibly even the entire state of Nebraska?

A: It was probably the greatest football game I’ve ever attended. We were on our feet, screaming at the top of our lungs, and clapping, for three straight hours. And thanks to the pathetic Nebraska football team, we waved our wheat so much that I thought I was developing a mild case of tennis elbow. Luckily we had a hot tub at the hotel, but I digress. Two of the best indicators of a really fun sporting event are 1) you lose your voice cheering 2) you get so excited, you joyfully high-five strangers – both of those things occurred at the KU/Nebraska game. And when Nebraska finally begged for mercy, like William Wallace screaming “FREEDOM!” at the end of Braveheart, we charged the field, we tore down the goalposts, we carried the goalposts out the stadium, and threw one of them in Potter Lake … so the victory felt pretty good.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes the state of Nebraska and the Cornhusker football team, years to recover from an ass-whooping like that. They may even need to seek-out professional psychological treatment – we’ll see.

I have time for one more question.

Q: Besides Bryn spilling half a Taco Bell restaurant on strangers and her boyfriend, any other memorable interactions occur between your group and Kansas fans?

A: The group of guys sitting right in front of us brought their own Jack and Coke to the game since Memorial Stadium is a dry facility. Actually, they brought their own Jack and poured it into a Coke they purchased at the game – yuck. Anyway, by the mid-third quarter, these barely 18-year olds were all drunk off their asses (a sign of inexperienced drinkers). On or about this time is when Kansas really started putting the screws to Nebraska and it was getting more and more apparent that a Kansas victory was looming.

Let the trash talking begin!

Like I said earlier, we were all very rowdy and talking crap about Nebraska, but these drunk idiots in front of us were making the stupidest declarations in the history of taunting and mocking. I was embarrassed these guys were rooting for Kansas. For about 20-30 minutes straight, this one drunk guy could only loudly scream the following three phrases:

“Go Home!”
“F*ck Nebraska!”
“It’s Over!”

I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but I’m not – that is literally all this guy could say! And to make matters worse; he wasn’t funny and was trying really, really hard to jinx us. When you haven’t beaten a team since John Quincy Adams was a teenager, you really don’t want to tempt fate.

Since all four of us laughing at him and making fun of his bonehead, drunk chants wasn’t working in quieting him down, Jasmine decided to take matters into her own hand, or more accurately, her own mouth. Jasmine took a big sip of her Sprite and spit it onto the back of the idiot’s head and neck. She did it once, twice, three times a spitter. Not only did it shut him up and require him and his friends to move a few rows down, but somehow he also never figured out that it was Jasmine spitting on him! Great move on Jasmine’s part.

I’m not advocating spitting on drunk, obnoxious college freshman, but in this instance it was certainly justified. Our entire section of fans genuinely appreciated Jasmine’s crowd control creativity.

That’s all the time I have for questions. Goodbye and thank you for coming.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

KU SUX