Saturday, May 06, 2023

Football in the Rain

 Today was the last day of Canada's conference. The kids and I went to a used bookstore. Then we saw the statue of the great Scottish boxer Ken Buchanan. We got some pizza and went to see a Hibs soccer game.

The crowd was 16,334, so it's not the biggest stadium. It had more of a minor league feel. It took me a while to figure out how to scan the ticket because I'm an idiot. I scanned Tali and she pushed the gate to go through. I scanned Abie's  but he didn't pushed the gate fast enough and it locked. I did my ticket and tried to get Abie through but we didn't do it fast enough.

This was a floor to top of the doorway rotating gate, so Tali couldn't come out and we couldn't go in. I scanned the tickets again and they were declined. I told Tali to wait right there. Abie and I ran to the handicap ticket taker and told him what happened. The tickets were declined again and he told me to go to support nearby. So I ran there and told her what happened. She reset the tickets and told me to go first. I did, but then the gate got stuck with Abe's ticket. A couple of tries later he got in. We ran over to Tali who was waiting by the gate. She told me later she was just a little scared.

The kids didn't really pay attention to the game. We were in the front row in the corner. Hibs was up 2-0 at the half. The kids wanted food, but I wanted to wait until the second half. Turns out the food stalls close after halftime so they were pissed at me.

In the second half, one middle aged man maybe had too much to drink and kept yelling fucking every third word. His accent was so strong I could only make out "fucking" and the occasional "cunt." I couldn't understand anything else he was saying. I was hoping the kids couldn't either, but they heard all the fuckings being dropped. The constant f bombs spread. Soon everyone near us started tossing them around.

At the end, the other team scored a cheap goal and the lead shrank to 2-1. After some nervous moments, Hubs pulled it out 2-1 just as the rain picked up.

We made it to another book store where I got some books on Scotland for us, drawing much ire from the kids who wanted books we can get anywhere. Then we made the long walk back to our area and the rain pelted us. The kids have effective rain jackets. I have a fleece that does well in the rain, but had left it in the room next door during the power outage fiasco. The fleece I had on attracts rain, so I was soaked.

We got takeaway for dinner and brought it to the hotel, hoping the paper bags of books and dinner wouldn't disintegrate in the rain. Luckily they didn't and we ate dinner in the hotel room.

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