Nashville Knucklehead

How Suite it Is

I have, on a handful of occasions, been to see professional sporting events in the confines of a luxury suite. Such was the case yesterday at LP Field, where me and my big-shot friend took in that heartbreaking squeaker of a professional tackle football match-up between the Titans and the Cowboys.

You might think that you become a little distanced from the game in one of those suites. Well, that is true, but it is offset by the fact that there is free beer and a private bathroom. You might think that it isn't as exciting to watch the game from one of those rooms, the cheers aren't as loud and it isn't as rowdy. Well, all that is true also, but it is offset by the free food and the private bathroom.

The food is as decadent and delightful as you might imagine in such a place that caters to we elite, eight times per annum. Well-done beef patties with minimal soy filler kept warm in a chafing dish with buns and ketchup and lettuce and such. Papa Johns pizza, cheese and pepperoni, under a heat lamp. Scrumptious chicken "fingers." Taquitos. And dip. Don't forget about the dip.

The free beer included Heineken and Amstel, and also some Budweiser products in strange, new aluminum bottles, which sparked a debate between myself and my big-shot friend about whether it was an aluminum bottle or a bottle-shaped can. Is the definition of a bottle a glass vessel for holding beer, or does the shape alone make it a bottle? My big-shot friend then steered the debate toward the BAM, or Beer Access Mechanism, feebly arguing that if you accessed the beer through a bottle cap, it therefore must be a bottle, despite what said vessel may or may not be constructed from.

Yes, it was an exciting game.

You might think that there would be people who are in the luxury suites who have no interest in the action on the field. That is also true. As we were leaving at halftime to go visit our poor "friends" who had to sit with the rest of the commoners, I overheard a woman in our suite turn to another and ask, "so how many points do they get for a touchdown?"

We were forced to pour our Heinekens into plastic cups by a sympathetic security gaurd who knew such an injustice was barely tolerable by folks like us before we could board the elevator which would take us down to be re-introduced into the general population. We weaved our way through the unwashed masses, and met our commoner "friends" in our usual spot, the smoking section next to the beer cart behind the northwest corner of the end zone. I told them of the woman who had no idea how football even worked, and how most people would give their left arm for a chance to sit up there. Eyes were rolled and "you're kidding me"s were tossed about as the injustice of the situation enveloped our poor commoner "friends" like a cloud of thick blue smoke.

Or maybe that was just all the smoke from the thousand people puffing away at their Marlboros behind the northwest corner of the end zone.

As halftime ended, we weaved our way back through the teeming bourgeoisie, finally arriving back at our destination. I felt dirty. I immediately used our private bathroom and then pulled a fresh Heineken in a proper glass bottle out of the cooler. And then we saw, in a moment of great irony, (or coincidence, I always confuse the two) that the seats we had occupied the entire first half were now taken by a man and the woman who knew nothing about football.

Bitch.

So we were faced with standing in order to witness half number two in the Vince Young era. By my math, there were sixteen seats in the suite, and the company that pays for the privilege of inviting we elite to enjoy the game are given at least 24 tickets. That means there is standing to be done.

Standing is for commoners. We left.

posted by Nashville Knucklehead @ 7:21 AM