Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Catching Fire, Meeting Sasquotch and Other Sports-Related Exploits: Part 1

Part 1: Catching Fire: My Story of the AFC Championship Game

Alright, I'm giving into the requests; I'm going to tell you all how I actually caught myself on fire. I've mentioned the fact that I caught on fire at the AFC Championship game both on this blog and on Twitter. But I haven't shared the how part. So here's the long and short of it.

There were four of us cramped into my car from Newton to Foxboro--me behind the wheel, a middle-aged die hard Pats fan, my boyfriend (a die hard Pats fan just the same, but boyfriend is more interpersonally descriptive) and a mutual friend who was rooting for the other team (we tried not to hold it against him). It was freezing out, so aside from the four of us, there were multiple layers of clothing on all of us and spread around the car there were extra coats, sweaters, gloves and hats. In fact, the middle-aged die hard brought a full body suit to keep warm.

We got to Foxboro with about an hour's worth of time for tailgating. So after the car was parked, we made our way to the tent to get some grub. We passed patriotic and rental RVs, cooking fires and grills of all sizes, and lots of cheap beer, before finding the friends we were looking for.

The tent was full of people slowly moving in all directions to talk, stand by the propane space heaters or get at the food. But by the time we arrived at the tent the cooking was winding down. The chili was almost gone. And there was some chilled American chop suey--it wasn't supposed to be chilled, but when it's twelve degrees out, that happens.

I was leaning over a propane space heater to get at the more food.  But wearing the three layers of pants I had on to keep warm for the game, I couldn't tell I was too close to the space heater.   

From the other side of the tent, someone shouted, "she's on fire." 

That she was me... I was on fire. 


Of course it got put out; otherwise, I probably wouldn't be as jovial about the whole thing.  And the only thing damaged, aside from the pride of the retired firefighter who through wine on me to put the fire out, was my sweatpants and my partially melted fleece.  


Coming soon:
Meeting Sasquotch: My First Beanpot and Social Media
Watching the Super Bowl: Trial of Errors

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