The Poking Device

Over the last 10 years I’ve traveled to stadiums near and far. If the gatekeepers at these stadiums were graded on how well they’ve checked my purse for contraband (booze, signs, umbrellas, air horns) I would give them a collective F+.  Generally I open my purse and they glance inside.  That's the entire purse checking process.

So on that fateful day in Lincoln - October 16, 2010 – I didn’t feel the need to think too far ahead about my plan to get booze into the stadium.

As Kacie, Debra and I meandered through the streets of Lincoln, we did have the foresight to hit up a liquor store. The general result of the pre-game liquor store is to acquire ‘boot-sized’ or ‘flask sized’ bottles of booze that can be carefully tucked into a game day boot and walked right into the stadium.

Lincoln, apparently anticipating our arrival, was not accommodating to my boots. The smallest bottle of acceptable liquor was roughly the size of a square shaped travel mug with a four inch neck. Ever the alcohol-optimist, I bought it.

This began an immediate string of bickering between me and Kacie. Kacie told me I couldn’t get it in. I became defiant and insisted I could. At different points we mocked one another to Debra, who caught in the middle, agreed that it was pretty big but that I am pretty clever.

Weaving through the day, I ended up buying a t-shirt, and, being the extremely clever girl that I am, wrapped the inappropriately sized Parrot Bay inside it and anchored it at the bottom of my purse. When it was time to examine my purse, I would hold it in the air from the bottom and open it up, therefore exposing a weightless purse with a t-shirt at the bottom.

As the day got longer and I grew less sober, I kind of forgot my brilliant game plan. When we rolled up to the ticket line, I plopped my purse down on the table and opened it up. At the sound of the sickening thud, I looked up and met my gatekeeper dead in the eye. Then I saw it. The big poking device.

Uh oh.

I’d only heard of the big poking device. I’d never actually seen one being used at a college football game. Now here I was, with a purse full of booze, looking straight at one as it started to poke at my purse. My hands got a little clammy.

“What was that?” he asked me, prodding the metal stick of no fun around in my classic black Coach bag.

“Oh, my purse is just really heavy” I replied, completely drunkenly nonchalant. I got this, I thought.

Poke…poke…thunk. “What’s in the t-shirt?”

Sweat… sweat….sweat. “Oh, that’s just a t-shirt I bought.”  Yes, Beth, good.  Go with a nonsensical answer not particularly pertaining to the actual question, but kind of along the same lines.

As this is happening, Debra and Kacie are already inside. Debra asked Kacie “What do we do?” To which she replied “we give her five minutes. She’s got her ticket and her phone.” Sisterly love was not at Memorial Stadium at that moment. Of course based on past experience (BIG XII Championship, 2001) this should not have surprised me. Regardless, I’m sure Kacie and Debra had the utmost faith that my booze and I would be getting into the stadium that day.

Thunk…thunk…poke. “What’s in the t-shirt.”

Panic…panic…panic . “Okay, it’s booze. Can I just go in? Please” I figured lying at this point would not help, since we both knew that we both knew what I had in that purse, so I went for pleading in my best Texas drawl.

“Sorry ma’am, I can’t let you in here with that. You can go over there and drink it, then come back in. Or you can throw it away and come back in.” Both of these options were enunciated by him pointing with his giant poking device to a) a clump of people downing booze and b) a large trashcan full of discarded booze.

Pleading look.

Shaking head.

“Okay, fine”

I huffed over to the clump of people downing booze. “Hey Huskers! Cover me!” True to the kind and welcoming nature of the Nebraska fans, they did just that. As I squatted down and tried to maneuver my jeans over my knee, they made a tight circle around me. I don’t know how, but I got the bottle into my boot. It was precarious and obvious, but it was no longer in my purse. Thanks to the Care Bear’s circle of concealment, I once again had hope.

I popped back in line, limping carefully as to not disturb my boozeboot situation.

When I got the gatekeeper I put my purse down with a much less resounding thump. T-shirt over my shoulder, I looked up and found myself staring directly into the eyes of the gatekeeper with the poking device who had just sent me away.

Unsteady smile…sweat…Unsteady smile… "No more booze!”  Good Beth, good.  Just be all causal-like.  YOU GOT THIS!

Poke…amused half-smile….head shake…poke. “Enjoy the game, ma’am.”

A little too politely and way too crazy-eyed, I thanked him and limped on into the stadium, where Kacie and Debra were waiting for me.

In true little sister fashion, the first thing I could blurt out was “told you I could get it inside!” Classy, Beth. Classy. Of course, the gloating was short lived as I realized I had about 12 steps or 45 seconds before that Parrot Bay popped right out of my boot and on the concrete tunnel.

After managing to free the booze and find our seats, I further annoyed Kacie by screaming non-stop at every soda vendor that walked by. “SODA GUY” I would scream, arms flailing. “SODA GUY.” Kacie was about at the end of her rope.

Thank you, Soda Guy!

Still, as much as we may annoy each other, Kacie and I are instinctually protective of one another. When I finally snagged a SODA GUY and bought half his stock, the man behind me said in a slightly mocking tone “what, you got some hooch for that?” Kacie whipped around and looked him in the eye. “Yes,” she said calmly, not missing a beat. “Oh, cool.” The Husker replied.

Rolling her eyes, she accepted her spiked sprite and the past was forgotten.

But I learned a valuable lesson that day. Bring pre-planted, boot-sized booze only...because if I’m going to football stadium jail, Kacie and Debra will not come get me until after the game.

Chicken Nugget

October 31, 2010 will remain forever, my very last Halloween.

Since my venture into adulthood, I’ve lost interest in costume parties and drinking holidays. It’s become an increasing whip to have to dress up for a theme party or spend all day trying to maneuver a drinking holiday. Halloween is the pinnacle of this frenzy, combining the costume and drinking requirements, and I work very hard to have to “work late” or “not feel good” when All Hollow’s finally rolls around.

In 2010, a decision (based purely on nostalgia and football fever) was made that Kacie, Debra and I would dress up for Halloween and hit 6th Street in Austin after the Baylor game. This decision would eventually prove to be a worse one than starting Simms over Applewhite in the 2001 Big XII Championship. But I digress.

After a humiliating loss to Baylor at our home stadium, the three of us headed back to the hotel to suit up. Kacie was dressed as a sexy fireman, Debra donned a sexy waitress costume and I was…Girl Big Bird.

I was very proud of my Girl Big Bird costume. It had a feathery looking dress with a layered feathery skirt, cute pink and orange stockings and a Big Bird Head on a headband. I wore heavy blue eye-shadow and had even added a feather boa bustle in the back.

Then there were the feet.

Worry not about the feet, my child.

I looked for weeks for appropriate orange shoes to wear as feet, but knowing I’d be walking and standing all night, I just couldn’t settle. So I set out to make my own by crafting large big bird feet and toes out of orange foam board. I flopped them over a pair of comfy heels and secured them to my ankles with pretty pink ribbon. My feet were of much debate the week before Halloween. After texting her pictures of them, Kacie responded that she was “worried about [my] feet.” She and Debra eyed them dubiously as I strapped them on before leaving the hotel.  

When it was all put together…I looked like a Girl Big Bird. Cute, but not sexy.

This wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last time I was inappropriately matronly at an event, but my un-sexiness was exaggerated by the fact that most women wear underwear, stilettos and angel wings or bug ears to 6th Street Halloween.

We knew we had made a mistake as soon as we left the hotel. People were too disorganized, wandering aimlessly through the streets. They were too grabby. They were too drunk. And there were too freakin’ many of them.

It didn't help that we were so annoyed and frightenend that we couldn't muscle through the throngs.  At one point Debra turned to me and said "We're like the Longhorn offensive line: Timid, Scared..." I interrupted her.  "And indecisive."

We tried to keep out of the fray by claiming a table pretty early at a bar lining the block party. This became un-fun when we were immediately assaulted by the German Beer Drinking team from Beerfest. We had to get out of there. Most bars proved similar results, and the lines were only getting longer.

Here’s the thing about drunk people and Halloween. When you’re drunk, you see a costume and comprehend what it is, but you just can’t make the words come out of your head properly (re: me in Stillwater, Oklahoma). The first instance of brain-to-word confusion came when we were walking out through the lobby of the hotel. A guy dressed like Tony Romo with a broken arm noted aloud as I walked by “SpongeBob!” I did a double take, then asked Kacie and Debra “Do I look like SpongeBob? “ They were kind. “No, it’s just that you’re yellow.”

Unfortunately, the SpongeBob incident set the precedent for my night, and I became completely paranoid about my costume. Not only was I un-sexy, but also ambiguous.

The girls tried to talk me off the ledge by pointing out this was happening everywhere. Case in point, as we walked along a sidewalk, a homemade Buzz Light-year zoomed past. As we praised his costume someone behind us yelled out “Hey! Buzz Aldrin!”

Oh, so very close.

Eventually, the night got to a point where I had been called "duck" and "chicken”. Kacie had been groped by a few strangers and Debra had been stepped on twice. It was then that we decided to head a few blocks down to a private party hosted by a friend of ours with a tailgate we'll call "The JumboTron Whores". The walk was brutal and the people just as bad, so by time we got there all I could do was desperately say at the bouncer “we’re with The JumboTron Whores...jumbotron…whores….please…”

Once inside, we looked for the guy who had invited us.  We'll refer to him as "Units".  We had called him to let him know we were there, and found out that he was running late.

So happy to be indoors with people who weren’t intent on making us uncomfortable, we sat and ordered drinks. I poured over karaoke selections and we met someone who was possibly as upset by costume confusion as I was. While clever, the man with the chef’s hat and t-shirt bearing the elemental symbol “fe” was getting a lot of “steel chef” and “Swedish chef” comments that he didn’t care for.

"Neeber schneeber." That’s Swedish chefspeak for “I feel your pain, brother.”

After having a few drinks and witnessing some terrible karaoke we wandered into the main room of the party, eyes peeled for Units or some of the other people we knew.  While Units was still MIA, we did run into his girlfriend.  It just took one very uncomfortable moment for us to realize that Units wasn't picking up her calls...and she was quite unhappy he picked up ours.

By the time the night was over, we had gotten Units in deep water with his gal, sung karaoke and encountered Jabba the Hut. Luckily none of us had fallen down, and Kacie did not murder the very sexy (just ask her) Minnie Mouse.

We headed home. Exhausted and glad the very last Halloween was over.

Turns out, the most fear we felt all night was the moment we arrived back at the hotel. A party had just ended in one of the ballrooms and people were milling around waiting for cabs. Hundreds of people. They had diamonds for teeth, they were not in costume, many of them were throwing shoes, arguing and yelling obscenities. To add to the ambience, there were armed policemen in the lobby with their hands poised hovering over their guns.

All we wanted to do was get to our room. Alive.

Once in the room, I made them both apologize. The entire night, there had not been one single issue with my Girl-Big-Bird-homemade-feet.

They will never again doubt my feet.

So my very last Halloween (all things considered) was fun. The holiday went out of my life with a bang. As frustrated as we were at the time, we laugh hysterically now when we tell the stories.

Just recently, in fact, Kacie and Debra revealed to me a dark secret about that night. I had always thought there should be no secrets between friends, but in this case, I think they were wise to wait awhile to tell me.

As the story goes, a few weeks after the very last Halloween, Debra asked Kacie in a tentative tone “So, speaking of that night…Did you hear…um, in the lobby…on Halloween…that person called Beth – ?"

Kacie stopped her with a nod. Somehow in the midst of the fear of near death in the hotel lobby they had both seen a man point at me and heard him call me something. Knowing I was already on edge regarding costume confusion and that it had been a long night of walking, frustration and chaos, they said nothing about what they had witnessed. They didn’t even dare discuss it among themselves.

“Yeah, I heard it,” Kacie said, still nodding.

“Chicken Nugget”

New Boots

It became clear that I needed to invest in a nice, comfy, stylin’ pair of cowboy boots if I planned to survive another football season in (and around) Texas.

I searched the world (okay, I went to three stores) over and found a beautiful pair of black and brown old gringos and had them custom fit to my high arched yet freakishly short and narrow feet. Half a paycheck later, my boots and I were inseparable.

While wearing my still new boots at the Missouri Tigers’ Stadium I was intoxicated.

Due to the intoxication I tumbled down a small set of six steps. It’s possible there were only three steps but I was seeing double. My boots and I will never know.

The stumble wasn’t too bad: I managed to stay upright, but there was arm flailing and excessive spastic movement.

I still feel shamed by what I did next: I blamed the unfortunate footing on the staircase on my new boots.

How quickly I turned on the Old Gringos that I had so lovingly pulled on just seven hours and a belly full of booze earlier!

“NEW BOOTS!” I squawked, still flapping my arms to keep balance. “I’M NOT DRUNK! I FELL BECAUSE I HAVE NEW BOOTS ON!” People were starting to stare. “NEW BOOTS! I’M SOBER! NEW BOOTS.” Tonya Harding had NOTHING on me.

Oh how the mighty had (quite literally) fallen…

Don’t feel too bad for the boots, though. No bad deed goes un-punished. They eventually won the war a few weeks later, when they crippled me in Lubbock, causing me to shout at an innocent young co-worker for not carrying me across a busy street and sit in the lap of strangers, simply so I wouldn’t have to stand up anymore.

My boots and I have made up. But I will not cross them again.

Love Field

By 2009 I had lived in Dallas for over half of a decade. In this time, despite my many travels to Burnt Orange locations, I had only flown out of Love Field a few times. And, in defense of the story that’s about to be told, I had never driven myself there.

It was October of that year, when we traveled to Missouri. By now you know that my sister Kacie, our friend Debra and I tailgate with a core group of folks at each home game and many of the away games. The Come & Take It Tailgate has been involved in many of my fondest memories of the last decade, and I’m always excited to spend college football Saturday with them. Often, though, it’s just Kacie, Debra and I on the road together, exploring our new college football city.

This particular year, Kacie, Debra, her boyfriend at the time, Jeff and I were all scheduled for a Southwest flight to Kansas City at 3:20 PM. All of the Southwest flights for the rest of the day and the next morning were booked solid, as the Cowboys were playing the Chiefs the same weekend.

Being a dutiful flyer, I left my office, located approximately 7 miles from the airport, at 1:00 PM. I typed the airport’s name into my iphone map and set off. I knew it was generally near Mockingbird. After following the turn by turn directions in the map, it was clear I was not headed to the airport’s main entrance. Assuming my phone was taking me an awesome back way, I drove back and forth looking for a road that did not exist. I turned down other roads when my dot looked about right, but that lead me nowhere.

Eventually I asked for directions. They sounded easy enough. It wasn’t until the old Texas Stadium got bigger and bigger, closer and closer, that it became clear I was mistaken. I did a u-turn.

It was now 2:30. By the time I popped back from the u-turn, I felt doomed. Frantic phone calls to the other members of my travel party went unanswered, as did texts. I started crying. And talking to myself.

I finally stopped again, at a Racetrac Gas Station, and still crying I frightened the clerks into giving me the correct directions to the airport. Still bawling, I found Love Field. Possibly the most easily assessable airport in the world. I rolled into the parking lot and found a front row spot. It was 3:05.

Delusional that I could get on a later flight, I dragged my bag up to security. Alarmed by my distressed and crying face, the three other airport travelers let me cut in front of them in the security line. When I passed through my screening, I saw on the flight trackers that my plane was still boarding.

Hope bloomed! I started running to the gate which was, of course, on the opposite side of the airport. Bear in mind that at no time during this adventure have I stopped talking to myself.  It's a wonder I wasn't additionally screened by security as I cursed my boots then apologized to those same boots while tearing them off my feet.

In fact, I didn’t even put my boots back on before tackling the moving sidewalks. I was full on "Home Alone" style running through the airport.  All the while talking to myself about how stupid I looked running shoeless and "Home Alone" style through an airport 7 miles, yet over two hours from my office.

Needless to say, everyone got out of my way.

This could be me....but isn't.

Redfaced from unexpected cardio activity and, of course, crying, I stepped up to the counter at the gate. Distress washed over me and removed all hope when I saw they had already chaged the flight on the board and were handing out standby boarding passes.

I have to believe the crying and babbling to myself caused the gate attendant some alarm. Seeing a grown woman cry pushed the ticket agent over the edge, and he told me they were just about to give away my seat. Fresh tears forced their way down my cheeks and became tears of joy when he handed me my boarding pass. I was the last passenger on the completely full plane.

I gate checked my bag and sauntered down the aisle, a little drunk with exhaustion and dehydration. Southwest doesn’t have assigned seating, so as I made my way to the one empty seat in the back, I was surprised not to see three familiar faces. Before plopping into my middle seat, five rows from the back I saw my sister two rows behind me.

No doubt because I was still looking very alarming, a nice lady offered to switch seats with me so I could sit by my sister. I immediately put my boots back on and ordered some booze while Kacie filled me in. A last minute appointment at the doctor had pushed Debra and Jeff back and they missed the flight. Until that very minute, Kacie had been headed to Missouri….alone.


Somewhere in the middle of my screwdriver and halfway over Oklahoma I had calmed down enough to laugh. Kacie was glad I had stopped sweating and/or crying.

Touchdown. Baggage claim. Rental Car Trolley. What comes next is a whole different story.

** Update***
After Kacie read this adventure, she made the comment that I didn't adequately express her fear and concern that she was about to head to Missouri alone.  Then she made the point "but it is all about you."  Damn straight, sister!