Los and Smoke's Bogus Journey

This Saturday, I had the “pleasure” of hangin’ out with the Reverend Smokin’ Steve – albeit it was at a Philadelphia Kixx soccer game, but still. I was looking forward to the free t-shirt, some good indoor soccer, and possibly checkin’ out some of the MILF’s at the game. Little did I know, it would be an experience in itself just trying to get to the game.

In case some of you don’t know, the Rev is the backup P.A. announcer for the Kixx, and as of yet, he hasn’t had the opportunity to call a game. Plus, Smokin’ has never experienced a KIXX game before, and the team gave him free tickets, so that he could get a better feel for the job responsibilities of the P.A. announcer.

Smokin’ chose last night’s game, which would’ve normally been a good choice, considering the free t-shirt giveaway. HOWEVER, thanks to the short-sightedness of the cities athletic teams, schedulers, and coordinators, the KIXX game (as well as the Flyers game) started at 7:00 p.m. … around the same time as the Army vs. Navy football game was ending.

For those of you unfamiliar, Army/Navy is a huge college football game, usually held in Philly. On the weekend of the game, the city, and South Philly in particular, is overrun by people representing Army and Navy. Most people know that during game-time, it is probably a good idea to avoid South Philly (the location of the stadiums). One would even think that the people who schedule games and events in the other stadiums (the Spectrum, the Wachovia Center, etc.) would either move their games back to maybe 8:00 or 9:00 to accommodate the fans leaving and entering, OR just not bother scheduling games on that day at all.

However, for some reason, these schedulers were about as inept as overweight football referees. It was traumatic, to say the least. I think it may have taken the Rev and me about an hour to find a parking spot … in a location we didn’t even know would be open by the time the KIXX game was over. We had to walk about another 15 minutes to get to the Spectrum, and were lucky enough to make it to our seats just before the start of the game.

We were the lucky ones. Throughout the first half, and into the third quarter, I saw families just making it to their seats for the first time. They had it worse than we did. They got ripped off by missing the entire first half of the game, AND having to go through the headache of dealing with traffic cops and event staff members who had no idea what they were supposed to do. Although I have no proof, I blame John Street (mainly, because I blame everything on John Street).

The rest of the night went much more smoothly. Smokin’ even caught a soccer ball.