So last Friday night our little family went to our first high school football game of the year. The game didn’t exactly go the way we wanted it to in terms of the score, but it was big fun considering that I talked my head off throughout the game and also managed to work in more than my fair share of hollering. It is impossible – IM.POSS.I.BLE. – for me to watch a football game without participating (aye, and loudly) and sometimes even thinking about what play I’d call if I were the coach. Now granted, I don’t really know any *official* plays, but I’ve seen enough Friday Night Lights to know how to say “Rover Down 45 on 2” and then wait for the tight end to catch a pass in the end zone.
And just to be clear, most of the “plays” that I “call” in my head don’t really use code names. They’re more along the lines of “I think the next thing I’d do is get #34 to run to the left.” So clearly I’m an offensive genius in the making.
It really was fun to see football live and in person again, but I’ll tell you what was not fun and that was my hair. The humidity was approximately 146% (totally possible), and I looked like a cross between Roseanne Roseannadanna and Joan Cusack in Sixteen Candles.
Seriously. It was terrible. By the end of the night my hair had its own ZIP code and was in the process of staging a coup against the state of Alabama. IT MEANT BUSINESS.
Saturday morning the little guy and I road tripped to Starkville so we could see our Bulldogs play in their season opener. I was feeling optimistic that the day wouldn’t be too hot since it was cloudy and overcast and whathaveyou, but I am here to tell you that after we parked our car and started walking across campus, it became crystal clear to me (and I even mentioned it on the Twitter) that the temperature was somewhere between very hot and NOW I WILL BURST INTO FLAMES. Sweet mercy it was brutal. My hair didn’t frizz quite as badly as it did Friday night, but I was so hot that my cowlicks were completely out of control. It looked like I’d gotten hold of a roller brush and tried to create wings in random places all over my head, and by game time I’d given up the pretense and just pulled back the top of my hair in a clip.
No kidding. It’s a new low when you walk into a football game sporting a hairdo that makes it look like you’re getting ready to wash your face.
And listen. If I’d had one of those terry cloth headbands in my possession, I would’ve written GO DOGS across it in a Sharpie and slapped that sucker in my hair in a heartbeat. No hesitation whatsoever. Because the most important objective in my whole life this past Saturday night was to tame the cowlicks into submission by any means necessary. Plastic clip, terry cloth headband, 52 ponytail holders, WHATEVER. Pride in my appearance wasn’t even a blip on my haircare radar. I just needed for my hair to SIMMER DOWN, POR FAVOR.
The clip managed to get my hair and me through the night, and we had a great time at the game. The ‘Dogs won 56-9, so it was a fine start to the season. After the game we went over to my friend Daph’s mama’s house (got that?) and spent the night since it was way too late to make the trek back to the ‘Ham. Daph and her boys were staying there, too, so we loved being there and laughed a bunch and felt sad about leaving everybody the next morning.
Oh, I do love a road trip that involves seeing old friends. And football, of course.
But it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if that humidity would dial it down to about 94%. That would be REFRESHING, in fact.
All in all, though, it was a delightful weekend.
Happy Football Season, everybody.
Go ‘Dogs.
And also Gig’em Aggies.
Hilarious post. Totally feel you with the hair clip. Had to rock that ‘do once in Disney World and I have the horror show pics to remember it by. I have been known to rate vacations by how my hair looked. Because of all my hair issues I will never be able to live in the south. I’m much better equipped to deal with hat head.
Thanks for the morning laugh. This is the time I year I wish I were a Marine Corps recruit and could shave my head.
Thank you, God, for football season – and haha! I feel you on the hair thing – 14 years and counting living in the bayou (LA & Houston) and I have finally surrendered my hair to the keratin treatment. I know it’s expensive but it has been the BEST investment b/c once my hair gets away from me, there’s no turning back. Not even a ponytail looks good when it’s in that state. Anyway, maybe worth a shot?
This post is one of the many reasons I so look forward to reading your blog. Thank you for your laugh out loud humorous writings.
I wondered if you were at the game on Saturday! My husband and I went and it was our first MsState game and our first SEC game. Maybe you haven’t noticed because you grew up here, but the FANS ARE INTENSE! Those tailgaters don’t mess around, kids. Some tents even had chandeliers! Most had flat screens and the best part was that they totally just left the flat screens by themselves when they went into the game and no one stole them. That would never happen in Wisconsin. At any rate, it was lots of fun and I rang my cowbell so much that my arms were sore the next day!
Welcome to the Bulldog Nation!!!!
I’m not a huge football fan, but have started going to the local HS games because my daughter marches in the band. Who knew that you needed season passes at a high school and that there would be a jumbo-tron???
Also started tagging along with friends to watch their son play at Sewanee (University of the South) – talk about fun!!! It’s a tiny, tiny stadium and you drive in and park immediately behind it…dogs are welcome…cocktails are welcome…$10 per car…watching the Highlanders and the Wellingtons is worth the trip!!!
I agree with you 10000% on the heat Sat. We were at the MSU game as well. We luckily walked into the stadium about the time it started raining. UGH. Big drops. Then the heat and humidity rose to a whole new level. But on the plus side, we were all hot and stinking so we weren’t alone.
On a better note, wasn’t the Sonic Boom Ah-Mazing???? Even the ‘little Tigers’ til they started booty dancing.
And yes, we SEC fans are intense!
Oh. My. I am laughing so hard. Thanks for making hot and humid the funniest thing I have read in a long time.
I look forward to your wit every morning & you never disappoint!! I was laughing out loud this morning. Even though I live in MN, I can totally relate to the crazy hair with the humidity so as I’m laughing at your hair clip story, I’m also nodding & thinking “been there!”
Thanks for the daily laughs…Love your blog!!“““““““““
My older son is a freshman at the University of North Carolina this year. On Saturday, my younger son and I went to visit him and go to our first Tar Heel football game. Apparently we had the same weather in Chapel Hill that you had in Starkville. I was dying! My face was pink and my hair was pulled back in a scrunchie (it was all I had with me). Not photogenic. And we were on the GOOD side of the stadium. It was so awful that two ladies in the section next two us were assisted out by EMS. We braved it through the end of the halftime show and then left. We didn’t feel as if we were abandoning the team because we were winning 42-0 at that point. I did, however, feel terrible for the students in the marching band, who were in full uniform! (I guess a mama worries about everyone’s kids, not just her own.) Also, I can now testify that they don’t call it Chapel HILL for nothin’! My word, how can every direction be uphill? Still and all, any day I can spend with my college boy is a good one. I’m just glad he didn’t choose to go to school in Florida. Go Heels!
The real question is – what did you eat at the ballgame?!!
I look for my laugh here every day. Thank you for reminding this & MSU alum what I’m missing!
Sometimes, after I wash my face, I just leave my hair clip or cloth headband wrap thingy on in an attempt to embrace it as hair fashion. Then again, sometimes I wake up in the morning and leave my eye mask shoved on my forehead until almost noon. It’s like a diversion to bad hair. As if these hair “props” will take the focus off my actual, you know, hair.
In church Sunday, I turned to my Baylor alum older daughter and said “Kick off in Waco is at 5:30, wanna go?” And we had us a spontaneous two and a half hour road trip to Jerusalem on the Brazos. Where even in the shade it was rivaling your “Burst into Flames!” But, it was worth the sweat, bad hair, and sore rear ends from the drive and the bleachers to see the Bears win big in their first game without RG3. Not too mention some uninterrupted time with the daughter.
As Kelly Stamps said earlier this week it really is the most wonderful time of the year!
GO GATORS AND SIC ‘EM, BEARS!
You are SO FUNNY … and I NEEDED a laugh!
“..by game time I’d given up the pretense and just pulled back the top of my hair in a clip. No kidding. It’s a new low when you walk into a football game sporting a hairdo that makes it look like you’re getting ready to wash your face. ”
Love it!
Oh, I’m laughing so hard that I’m crying – my own version of laughter thru tears is tears thru laughter! My hair is currently and will continue to be hidden under a baseball hat until Halloween, and all of my people are thanking me for it! So glad to know that it is not just me!
I too was at the game and we were there for the first rain at 12:30 that kicked it to a hotter than hot, then the one before the game that put it at intense. I kept walking into the bathroom saying, “Surely, I did not look like this when I left the house.”. My favorite was people watching from the tailgate. Some people were dressed for fall. Boots, leather pants, etc. I know they were rethinking those choices about 2 seconds after they left the air conditioning of their house:). Stop by tent 46 anytime.. Would love to meet you and share dip recipes.
Okay. While I love me some Friday night football games, I hate the frizz/puff the evening air brings on. I have 2 words for you.
The first is what saved me from total humiliation for years: Baseball hat.
The second is what I discovered a year ago and the second I came home from the beauty parlor I warned my husband to “get saving” because it is manditory for my well-being from here on out: Keratin.
Well that humid air now has competition. I can now only go out and not hide, I can shake my head about and it softly moves about. No more frizz/ puff stiff football head.
Whew! I’m with you – literally – I was at the game too. It was so disgustingly hot, I had my hair in a ponytail before I got to the stadium. Then the rain kicked in ever so slightly, which really made things nice and steamy! Although Sunday is supposed to be nice and cool (in the 80s!), it looks like Saturday is gonna be rainy – BOO. But we’ll be there “with bells on”. Hey, again – literally – with cowbells in hand! Sorry to be so corny!
The rainbow is a very nice touch in your photo, Missy!
And I’ll trade you hair any day – mine’s falling out the past couple of years and just gets flat as a pancake in the humidity. I’d love a good hair expansion!
Counting down till your book is released – your blog is consistently the most well-written and entertaining of any I’ve read. Thank you for a sorely-needed daily dose of the happy.
Be thankful for the ‘big frizzies’ as opposed to the ‘limp lifeless locks’ that I get when out in the humidity! There is nothing attractive about dull, lank mousy blond hair that looks like you got into the Crisco head first.
Heat, humidity, and football. Such Southern traditions.
H&H are the two main reasons we stopped going to games during the months of August and September several years ago. I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if I pay good money (and a lot of it by the time you factor in tickets, concessions, gas, tailgating, etc.) to sit out in 100 degree, 95% humidity for a minimum of 3 hours and do so in the name of fun and entertainment.
Let me tell you what’s REALLY fun and entertaining. Sitting on my comfy couch in my 70 degree temperature-controlled house watching not only the game I would have gone to, but numerous others as well. And, when one game is over, there’s no driving home. Simply change the channel and wah-lah another game! And, I still haven’t broken a sweat!!
Sure, there are times I miss the social aspect of it and the stadium atmosphere, but I’m as an introvert so it’s really not that big of a deal. Plus, all I have to do is open my front door and those feelings dissipate into the humidity quicker than I can adjust the thermostat.
Typo correction: 3rd paragraph should say, “but I’m an introvert…”
how do those boys play football in that blazing hot weather?? I feel so sorry for them. can’t be healthy at all.
I LOVE your hair posts!!! You can take a situation that would irritate the dickens out of me and make me laugh out loud about it!! I have a headband that I wear in the mornings while putting my make-up on. My hair is just the right length to stand straight up like a head dress when it’s on. I’ve wished that I could wear it all day, sometimes, when it’s really hot and humid. My hair is normally straight but very thick. At least, it’s straight until the humidity goes up. Then, I have these “horns” that flip out on each side. When this happens, I explain to my closest co-workers that I am NOT going for the Jane Jetson-look (you know, “Here’s George Jetson! Jane, his wife!). A clip on each side just may do the trick! Thanks, Boomama!! Can’t wait to hear about the next game (and hair emergancy)!!
You have just provided the best laugh I’ve had in a LONG time!! You are truly priceless! I go through withdrawal when you don’t post –laughter is the best medicine and I believe you could cure a lot of ailments. :-)
Oh you are preaching to the choir on this one. I’m right there with you and the hair claiming its own zip code. At games I swear I can see people stop making eye contact in conversation as they watch, instead, my hair rising to new heights above me. So attractive.
We made it about 5 mins into the first quarter at the State game before my hubby was fed up with my 4-yr-old’s whining. Never have I been so thankful for his impatience because she threw up everywhere as soon as stepped out of Davis Wade. That would have been a bad way to start the season for all the unsuspecting Dawgs in Section S! ha!
It was sooo hot Saturday, but the weather guys here are saying that tomorrow’s high is the mid-80s! Hooray! Hoping the Dawgs give my son a great present for his b-day tomorrow….a win!
Boo mama – Just wathced your beloved Bulldogs take out the Tigers from Auburn. Praise the Lord for lower humidity today! We didn’t go to the game b/c as you may have heard from Melanie GAMEDAY WAS AT TEXAS ATM!!!!!!!!! Whoop! And right this very minute my beloved Aggies are getting the gators aquainted with Aggieland! Yes, it is a good start to our time in the SEC.
Congrats, Sophie! my husband told me your Bulldogs beat Auburn.
As a Sooners fan and follower of your blog, I find it funny that I am now rooting for State EVERY weekend. Just for you. You are welcome. If they ever play the Sooners, all bets are off!! Congrats on the win today!
Your next book should be about your hair. The things you write about it are universally hilarious. And understandable. Frizzy-Haired Sisters, unite!
Ha, ha. You’e a hoot. I’d heard about your blog years ago, but never been to it until now. I’m a lover of football season too. My friend’s the offensive coach for the Seahawks…I’ll be seeing him today at the Cardinals/Seakhawks game here in Phoenix. I’ll put a good word in for you. ;)
BTW, Friday Night Lights was awesome…I had my own last episode party and everything. You can find it on my family blog. Kimballandjessica.blogspot.com