Week One!

Week One. Mike could hardly wait to get out of work, get home, get showered and get wings and a lager Sunday night, the first Sunday of the football season. Even better, the Giants were playing at 8:15 pm so he wouldn’t miss a moment of the game.

Mike and I checked out the bar/football scene when first having moved to South Jersey. We found one spot with the “Ticket” that seemed promising. The wings were awesome, I liked the nachos and it was a comfy sports bar type place with a full menu and plenty of TV’s and bar room. It went under renovation for almost two months and opened back up on Saturday. We scoped it out and had a drink and couldn’t help but notice the service was horrendous. No one had a clue what was going on and we knew it was going to hurt their business. It was painful to witness.

So Sunday came and we headed out early to catch the last of whatever game was on and get good seats for the Giants game. Mike and I don’t have cable yet and don’t typically get Giants games anyhow due to our proximity to Philly.

We stopped by Tailgate City again (the place with the horrendous service) and walked out after circling the bar. Bad bad bad. Nothing but bad service and drunk trashy Eagles fans who were still lingering after their win earlier in the day. (Go Eagles!)

So we moved on to the Inn on the Avenue. We sampled their wings a week or two earlier and scoped out the TV setup. We soon found out one of the bartenders was a Giants fans so Mike knew he could wear his Jersey.

This is what brings me to my story.

Growing up in Central Jersey, there was no official “team”. You liked who you liked and for whatever reason. You liked who your dad or big brother told you to like. If you were a girl, you liked the team with the cool colors or whoever your boyfriend liked. By no means would I say Central Jersey was more prone to Giants or Jets fans than say Raiders or 49ers fans.

Take “the crew” for example. Mike – Giants, Dustin – Titans, Randy – Browns, Jay – Bills,
Jess – Eagles and on and on. Sundays at Poor Billy’s meant clusters of similar colors crowding around televisions scattered throughout the bar. I, for one, liked to circulate throughout these clusters of color and talk a lot of shit.

Now for South Jersey….tsk tsk tsk. We walked into that bar Sunday night and it was EMPTY. Why was a sports bar with great plasma TV’s and awesome wings empty on a Sunday night? Because the Eagles had played earlier in the day. We had the whole place to ourselves except for the crazy Weird Al Yankovic looking Giants fan bartender, two Giants fans who turned out to be from Central Jersey and a few old drunk guys who said I should be ashamed of myself for being an Eagles fan and rootin’ for the Giants instead of the Colts.

“But the Giants are my second favorite team.” (Loyalty to my man.) The Seahawks are my third favorite for the same reason the Redskins were my favorite my whole childhood. (I still get a kick out of thinking my big brother is the shit and being that kid sister who likes what her big bro likes.)

So South Jersey is Eagles territory. Every other yard has the inflatable Eagles running back on the front yard, those who don’t have Eagles flags waving proud. Every bar is decorated green and has Eagles paraphernalia all about. Green green green. This is fine with me. I’m an Eagles fan but I don’t need Mike getting shit for wearing his Giants jersey. Think I’m over exaggerating? I think it’s pretty much common knowledge that Philly has the sickest sports fans. (I heard Raiders fans are pretty bad too.)

So anyhow we had a blast. I got a mean sore throat and had to leave and woke up Monday with a fever but that’s beside the point. The drunk Eagles/Colts fan told Mike after I left we were nice kids and welcome in “his” bar anytime we wanted. I think we found our spot and just like the old days at J.J. Bittings, the bartender Denise hooked us up and the bill was pretty tame.

Another bullshit difference between Central Jersey and South Jersey. North, wing and beer specials lasted as long as football was on. Here, only when the Eagles are playing. What kind of bullshit is that! A lager is $2 when the Eagles play and $4 before and after. That pisses me off. At least the Inn had other drink specials. Tailgate City had nothing else on special after the Eagles game.

But alas, it was fun. Let the weight gain season begin!!! I also thought it was funny that out of all the real football fans I know; only Doug and I were victorious. The Eagles and the Seahawks won week one!!

Beater’s getting married tomorrow. I’ll post some pictures. I hope I feel better by then. I don’t want to be blowing my nose every two minutes.

I'm actually excited to watch football Sunday night again. We'll have cable soon.